She will spend years learning how to live in a world that only knows her as a footnote. To reporters, she is “the sister.” To prosecutors, a reminder of what remains. To strangers, a shadow behind a notorious last name. Yet in the quiet corners of her own memory, she is simply the girl who walked in and found the axis of her life knocked off its hinges.
There are no anniversaries she can celebrate, only dates she survives. Court transcripts sit in boxes beside her mother’s sweaters, both too painful to touch and too sacred to throw away. People say she is “strong,” as if endurance were a choice. She knows better. Survival is not heroism; it is what happens when the story doesn’t ask what you want. It just keeps going, and leaves you standing in the doorway, holding a light that flickers but refuses to go out.
