Hidden Man At Our Table

Anger would have been the easier path. It would have justified our hurt and allowed us to retreat back into the safety of resentment. But we stayed. In that cramped kitchen, passing paper plates around, we traded hard truths alongside the food, letting the initial shock settle just enough for us to see her not as a figure in a story, but as a human being—flawed, fearful, and yet deeply familiar. Forgiveness didn’t arrive in a moment of dramatic reconciliation; it seeped in slowly, quietly, in the conscious decision to show up again despite the risk of pain.