I wanted so much to keep you safe. I did my best. I'm sorry things didn't come out different for the two of us. I wish I could have been good enough for you.

After a while, footsteps sounded on the flagstones outside and there was a gentle tap at the door. Of course, one of them would come. So close were we, the seven of us, that no childhood injury went unnoticed, no slight, real or imagined, went unaddressed, no hurt was endured without comfort.

She went on because there was no going back.

Real life is not quite as it is in stories. In the old tales, bad things happen, and when the tale has unfolded and come to its triumphant conclusion, it is as if the bad things had never been. Life is not as simple as that, not quite.

As for me, I had found love, and that was a gift worth suffering for.

And as I watched him, I knew that in every dark night there was, somewhere, a small light burning that could never be quenched.

In all experience, there is something to be learned. In deepest sorrow, wisdom is found. In the well of despair, hope rises.