Chapter 18

Years passed.
I became vice president of strategic partnerships.
Then chief operating officer.
I learned to walk into hotel restaurants without scanning the door.
Mostly.
I still flinched when phones buzzed too many times.
Healing is not a straight road.
It is a hallway where some doors still make noise.
But I kept walking.
I mentored younger women at work.
When one told me her boyfriend hated when she traveled for conferences, I did not say, “I’m sure he means well.”
I said, “Does his love make your world bigger or smaller?”
She stared at me.
May you like
Then started crying.
Sometimes the right question opens the locked room.