The months after were neither clean nor simple. Claire gave statements, answered letters, signed documents, and learned that survival did not feel like victory every morning. Some days it felt like paperwork. Some days it felt like waking too early and listening for sounds that were no longer there.
She sold the house before the trial. Her sister helped her pack badly, labeling three different boxes “kitchen things” and crying into a drawer of tea towels. June came with sandwiches and a strict refusal to be thanked more than twice.
One afternoon, Claire found the framed photograph from the church among the evidence returned to her. She stared at the woman in it for a long time. That woman looked soft, useful, easy to mourn. Claire turned the frame face down. Later, she visited St. Agnes alone. Sunlight crossed the pews in pale squares. Claire sat in the back row. She was done being a ghost. She could breathe and live again.