Chapter 13
Hope was one year old when we got the call.
It was from the warden of the prison where Megan was being held.
"Mrs. Parker? I'm calling about Megan Collins. She was attacked last night by another inmate. She's in the hospital. It's serious."
I held the phone away from my ear for a moment.
Nathan saw my face.
"What is it?"
"Megan was attacked in prison. She's hurt. Badly."
Nathan was quiet.
"What do you want to do?"
I thought about it.
Part of me wanted to feel something.
Sympathy.
Sorrow.
Even satisfaction.
But I felt nothing.
Just a strange, hollow indifference.
"Nothing," I said. "There's nothing to do. She made her choices. This is the life she created for herself."
I spoke back into the phone.
"Thank you for letting me know. But I don't want any further updates. She is not my responsibility."
I hung up.
Nathan watched me.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine. It's just... strange. Hearing about her. It feels like hearing about a stranger. Not my sister."
"She is a stranger. The woman who did those things was never really your sister. Not in any way that matters."
I nodded.
He was right.
Megan had never been a sister to me.
She had been a tormentor.
A bully.
A monster.
And whatever happened to her now was none of my concern.
We later found out that Megan had survived the attack.
But she was paralyzed from the waist down.
She would spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair.
In prison.
I heard it from a reporter who called asking for comment.
"No comment," I said.
And I hung up.
I didn't feel happy about what had happened to her.
But I didn't feel sad either.
I just felt... nothing.
She had become completely irrelevant to my life.
That same year, the Parker Foundation helped its five hundredth client.
We held a small celebration at our offices.
People whose lives we had touched came.
Women who had left abusive husbands.
Children who had been removed from dangerous homes.
Adults who had finally escaped toxic families.
They told their stories.
They thanked us.
One woman, a young mother named Sarah, came up to me.
She had left an abusive relationship six months earlier.
We had helped her get a restraining order.
We had helped her find housing.
We had helped her get her life back.
"I saw your trial," she said, holding her baby. "I saw what you went through. And it gave me the courage to leave. I thought if she could fight back against her own family, I could fight back too. You saved my life. And my baby's life."
She hugged me.
I held her and her baby.
And in that moment, I knew.
All the pain.
All the fighting.
All the tears.
It had been worth it.
Because this woman and her baby were safe now.
And there were hundreds more like them.
My baby's short life had meaning.
His or her death had not been in vain.
Because of what had happened, all these people were safe.
That night, I went home and held Hope.
I told her about her older sibling.
About the baby we had lost.
About how that baby's memory had helped us help so many people.
Hope didn't understand, of course.
She just giggled and grabbed my hair.
But I told her anyway.
Because she deserved to know.
She deserved to know that she had a brother or sister watching over her.
That love could come out of even the worst pain.
That hope could grow out of even the deepest despair.
Nathan came in and joined us.
We sat together as a family.
And for the first time since everything had happened, I felt whole.
Not perfect.
Not completely healed.
But whole.
The scars would always be there.
The pain would never fully go away.
But I had learned to carry it.
May you like
To turn it into something good.
And that was enough.
