Page 137 of True Blue

The next morning, breakfast arrives at my room, the worker kindly stressing that it is all gluten-free. There is coffee, fruit, eggs, something sweet with honey, and tucked beneath the tray is another drawing.

It’s me standing on a canal bridge, smiling softly, hair blowing in the wind. The expression on my face can only be described as freedom.

The caption makes my nose sting, and I have to breathe through the pressure in my chest to push back the tears.

You survived so many things, I can’t even comprehend your strength sometimes.

I am sorry that I became one of them.

I stared at those words for a long time and felt their weight.

Not I’m sorry I hurt you.

Not I feel sorry for hurting you.

I’m sorry that I became another wound.

But I don’t know what to do with it yet, so just like I did with the other drawings, I tuck it carefully away in the bottom of my suitcase to ponder later. Not now. Not while I’m on vacation.

But even as I tuck them away, they stay with me, and the weight feels comforting.

Then, in Berlin, I stare at the memorial to the Berlin Wall, the crumbling structure that divided families, and think of the other things that divide families.

Things you can’t always see. Things not made of brick, but alcohol. Guilt. Obligation. Fear. Comfort, even when it is toxic. Familiarity mistaken for normality.

There was a clear wall between Dawn and her mother, her daughters, and I was on that side too. Teddy stood on top of the wall, trying to play the balancing act, even though his mother was desperately pulling him toward her, away from me.

It’s in Berlin that my anger and heartbreak don’t soften, but they become clearer.

Teddy tried to keep the peace to the point of conceding so much ground that I don’t even think he realized he was losing it. He gave so much to Dawn, and she catered to him just enough, praised him just enough, needed him just enough, that it probably felt like a victory for him.

Like he could have it all—his overbearing mother, his toxic family, and his girlfriend.

Even though I felt like canon fodder. I wonder if he sees it now, and that’s why he’s here.

Restitution.

But it’s something else, too.

Maybe a necessary crumbling. Sometimes things need to be broken to be repaired better. Sometimes we gut houses of rot and upgrade them, reinforcing the old bones because they’re good—they’re built to last—they just need help.

Maybe Teddy is getting help. For all my anger and heartbreak, I hope he is. He doesn’t deserve Dawn as his mother. No one does, if we’re being honest.

At breakfast the next morning, delivered to my room again, there is a drawing.

I built walls I thought were protecting you.

They were just pushing you out.

I’ll tear down every one, brick by brick.

Then there’s me, sitting on top of a half-crumbled wall, smiling up at the sky. Through the mess of brick is a bear that looks beaten down, bloody, and dusty, like he just ran through the wall to break it. The detail in his eyes makes my breath catch. Pain and relief captured perfectly. Like it truly hurt him to break the wall, but he did it anyway.

For me.

My fingers gently trace the bear’s head.

Florence is something else entirely.