A year passed before I realized that I had stopped counting the days.
The seasons moved gently now.
Rain no longer sounded like sorrow; it simply meant the earth was breathing again.
The house felt lighter, though its walls were the same.
Perhaps it wasn't the house that had changed —
perhaps it was me.
Every morning, I brewed tea.
I watched the sunlight spill across the floorboards, the golden warmth crawling slowly toward my bare feet.
I couldn't hear the kettle whistle, but I had learned to see it —
the faint trembling of steam, the shimmer of heat.
Silence no longer frightened me.
It had become a friend.
A language that asked for nothing.
Sometimes, I would sit by the window and watch my son leave for school.
He always turned back before the gate now —
just to wave.
And though I couldn't hear his voice,
I could read the words he mouthed each time:
See you later, Mom.
Those three words were enough to keep my heart steady for the rest of the day.
My husband still tried to make amends.
He brought home flowers, small gifts, apologies folded in the shape of gestures.
I didn't reject them.
But I didn't reach for him either.
We lived like two ghosts learning to breathe again —
slowly, cautiously, separately.
He had not earned forgiveness, but he had learned to live with its absence.
And that, perhaps, was punishment enough.
Some nights, when the moon was full, I dreamt of her again —
the other me, the woman who gave me her life.
In the dream, she was always standing near water,
her white dress swaying like mist, her hands cradling a small child.
The girl's laughter filled the air — soft, like wind through glass.
I couldn't hear it, but I felt it echo in my chest.
A familiar warmth blooming like spring.
She would look at me and smile —
and I would smile back,
as if to say, We're both all right now.
I started writing again.
At first, just small things — recipes, notes, letters I would never send.
Then I began to write her story.
My story.
Ours.
The words came slowly, but each one felt like a heartbeat.
I wrote about the mountain, the false accusation, the pain that left me deaf.
I wrote about the light that found me when I thought I had died.
And how, in the end, it wasn't death that freed me —
it was forgiveness.
Not of them.
But of myself.
One evening, my son came into the kitchen while I was writing.
He stood beside me, reading over my shoulder.
When he reached the last line, he frowned.
"You didn't finish it," he said.
I looked up at him and smiled.
"Yes," I signed with my hands. It's not finished yet.
He thought for a moment, then nodded,
and gently placed his small hand over mine.
"Then keep living," he said.
"Until it is."
I didn't need to hear the words to know what they meant.
They filled the room like sunlight.
That night, I went outside.
The sky was wide and full of stars —
millions of them, quiet and endless.
I lifted my face toward them and closed my eyes.
Somewhere out there, I knew she was watching too —
the other soul who had taught me that even broken lives can bloom again.
And maybe, if the world was kind enough,
our laughter might touch somewhere between the stars.
I pressed a hand over my heart.
It was steady now.
Soft, warm, alive.
For so long, I had waited for someone to save me.
But in the end,
it was I who had chosen to stay.
And that choice —
that small, trembling act of courage —
was enough to let the light return