“I am still alive.”
Corinne started crying.
This time, I did not rush to comfort her.
For forty years, I had softened every consequence for my children.
Edmund had been kinder than I was.
He helped people who had nowhere else to turn.
But he also understood that kindness did not require pretending selfishness was love.
A month later, I moved Edmund’s files into a small office downtown and began working with the trust.
Every week, applications arrived.
Medical bills.
Tuition requests.
Families who needed one impossible month made slightly less impossible.
Wesley and Corinne called several times.
I answered when I wanted to.
I did not punish them.
But I stopped rescuing them from discomfort.
Maya came by one Saturday.
She stood nervously in my office doorway.
“Can I help?”
I handed her a stack of envelopes.
“Sit down.”
She smiled and took the chair across from me.
For a moment, she looked so much like Corinne had at fifteen that my chest ached.
Then I looked at Edmund’s photograph on the desk.
I had spent most of my life believing love meant protecting family from every painful consequence.
Edmund had understood something I learned much later.
Sometimes love means fir giving.
And sometimes it means finally refusing to let the people you love take.
