What mattered was that Susie wasn’t sad. She didn’t let anger take root too deeply within her. She chose curiosity over rage. She chose healing.
Forgiveness came slowly. Not to him. But to myself. Because anger only burns the one who holds the match.
Just because she forgave him didn’t mean I’d forgotten. I hadn’t erased all those nights, all the years spent filling Charles’s absence with stories I’d stretched out too long to give him anything.
But I saw the joy return to her eyes. I saw the happiness soften it.
And me?
I was freer than I had been in years. Grief had lived in my home for so long like an uninvited guest. It had its place at the table. It followed me into every room, clinging to my skin like smoke.
But now I understood something profound.
The burden I’d carried all these years wasn’t just sadness. It was lies.
Smiling woman standing outside | Source: Midjourney
Smiling woman standing outside | Source: Midjourney
The lie that he was gone. The lie that I had no choice but to mourn him. The lie that I was abandoned by death, when in reality, I was abandoned by my own choice.
Charles was no hero. Not on his departure, nor on his return.
But he wasn’t a villain either. He was a man. Weak. Flawed. Human.
A man who fled love, until love grew and knocked on his door, demanding recognition. Susie forgave him. I learned to set boundaries that allowed me to maintain sanity and integrity.
And what about Charles?
Well, he’s still learning. Learning how to be present. How to show up. How to stitch something fragile together from the ruins he left behind.
Some ghosts don’t haunt you forever. Some knock politely after 18 years and wait quietly.
