What business did we in fact have here at all? What titer of hubris so possessed us to think that we could right wrongs, repair damage, offer compensation—this much for an eye, this much for a limb, this much for a mother’s love and protection, this much for a life? Good purpose was no defense. What I was experiencing, and Julie could not, was the plain recognition of the role reversal that had begun like the distant sound of sirens and now come roaring up with lights ablaze and knocked me flat. For the first time in a long time I thought of Jill. Not the menacing Jill. But my once-upon-a-time friend Jill. Jill, grief-stricken, deprived of her lovely daughter. Her Bindy. Her only.

Then I said, “Maggie has a right to her hate. But in my mind, even though this isn’t true, in my mind...”

“Roman is Stefan.”

“That’s right.”

“So maybe Jill has to be the next recipient of The Healing Project. If she is open to it. Maybe it is time for Stefan to express his deep remorse directly to her.”

If I hadn’t already been sitting down, my legs would have gone slack with the immensity of the realization. “That’s impossible.” But even as I said it, I knew Julie might be right.

“It certainly will not be easy,” she said.

“Julie! There’s an ocean of distance between easy and confronting Jill McCormack!”

“You don’t have to be the one to confront her.”

“What else could Stefan’s plan for renewal be?”

“Remember the rules call for no direct contact between the participant and the victim’s family,” Julie said. “So I’m thinking the clearest message of remorse and amends might be for Stefan to offer to support Jill’s organization SAY. If she would have him. He would have to make the case why in his letter. After all, she formed it in honor of Belinda.”