What I keep
I went to the cemetery with some tulips recovered from the pile thrown behind the shed.
They were not perfect, but they were alive.
I didn’t get my mother back.
I did not fix what was broken.
But I didn’t let their version become the only story.
I won’t stay in this house. Let them keep the ring and the pictures.
I have his recipes, his dresses, his gestures.
And the certainty that the family betrayal revealed that day should not be stifled by silence.
The tulips will bloom again in the spring.
And I, too, because the truth always comes out, even when we want to ignore it.
