Chapter 23 - The Barn
For years I avoided loft.
Then one autumn, elevator lift was installed for storage access.
Not because I needed visit.
Because building should be usable.
I went up.
First time since fall.
Megan came.
No Brent.
No police.
No investigator.
The repaired railing felt solid beneath my hand.
I looked at spot.
Did not remember falling.
Still.
I thought that would bother me forever.
It didn’t.
The legal truth was enough.
Brent grabbed me after I told him not to.
His contact contributed to my fall.
He deleted evidence.
He lied.
Maybe he shoved.
Maybe I pulled away at worst possible second.
The plea did not need a movie reconstruction.
My paralysis was connected to his violence.
That was true.
I touched the railing once.
Then looked at my father’s old drawings.
Still in cabinet.
That detail made me laugh.
For years I thought I had gone upstairs for them.
I had.
And for the loose railing.
Memory had not lied.
It had just been incomplete.
I took drawings downstairs.
Converted one into framed plan of original Cedar Hollow barn.
Hung it in my office.
May you like
Not trauma.
Structure.
