With strong and supple hands, Anna smoothed the buttery oil between the channels of Tabitha’s ribs. While she worked, she encouraged Tabitha to take long, slow breaths. When her inhalations and her exhalations began to regulate, Anna spoke in a gentle, whispery voice.

“Will you tell me something, Tabitha?”

“Uh-huh,” she sighed, her tone relaxed and easy.

Anna swallowed. “Will you tell me about your brother?”

Tabitha’s eyes flew open. Her breathing began to catch.

“Shhh,” Anna whispered. “You are safe here. And I am listening. To you. Tonight it is your turn to speak,” she said, hoping to reassure her.

Anna waited until Tabitha’s breath began, again, to settle. She knew she was taking a great risk in trying to help her friend. But for some reason she thought that the sorrow Tabitha carried led to her tendency toward quick, shallow breathing. And that, if she could instill a sense of ease into her breath, Tabitha could feel and learn again the rhythm of speaking fluidly.

“I d-do n-n-not want to t-talk about th-that,” Tabitha said, her stuttering more pronounced than ever.

Anna’s heart fell as her confidence wavered.

Perhaps her instincts had been wrong? Perhaps she was causing her friend more harm than good?

She felt stones roll in her belly.

What would the others say when they found out?

Tabitha began to weep. Her tears came reluctantly at first, then burst wide in a rushing flood.

Seeing her friend’s distress, Anna cried out an apology. “I am sorry, Tabitha!” she said, desperate to stop what she had begun. “I am so very sorry for—”

“He w-was so mean to me!” Tabitha bawled, her fists clenching in anguish. “I l-loved him so m-much … and he only h-hated me.”

Silenced by Tabitha’s unexpected confession, Anna reached down and, before she could think about what she was doing, continued massaging the remedy across her chest.

Beneath her, Tabitha’s eyes burned with a fiery light. Then, like an animal slipping free of the hunter’s hand, the story she had resisted rushed from her mouth. As it did, her breathing came deeper. And gained power. Her words coming quick and clear. Laced with hurt and anger.

When she had finished describing what her brother had done to her, she closed her eyes and grew quiet. Finally, she said, “If I had a younger sibling, someone looking up to me, I would never bring them harm. It would never even occur to me!” She then opened her eyes and gazed off, as if into a remembered room. After a moment, she whispered, “To do what he did to me, he must have been in great pain himself.”

Anna’s eyes grew wide, amazed by her friend’s capacity for compassion. And her willingness to let go.

In the silence that followed, Tabitha closed her eyes and whispered, “Thank you.”

But Anna could not say for certain to whom she was speaking.