Comedy Shows
I didn’t visit during their legal proceedings.
I didn’t respond when Claire sent a letter saying she finally understood.
For twenty years, I’d worked to build a life independent of their approval.
I wasn’t willing to surrender that peace just because they’d finally begun facing consequences.
A year later, I returned to Platform 7.
Alone.
The station had changed. Trainstation cafes
The benches were newer.
The lighting was brighter.
The vending machines had been replaced.
Different passengers hurried along the platform, carrying luggage and checking departure times.
Nobody recognized me.
Nobody knew that twenty-one years earlier, a frightened fourteen-year-old boy had stood in almost the same spot, waiting for his parents to come back.
I walked toward the place where I remembered standing.
For a moment, I closed my eyes.
I expected the old pain to return.
The fear.
The shame.
The desperate hope that someone would come
