Helena did not object.
She wanted to.
She missed her daughter.
But she understood that the girl needed distance from the scandal and from a mother whose explanations had become difficult to trust.
They met for lunch occasionally.
At first, the conversations were awkward.
Helena asked about school.
Sofia gave short answers.
Sofia asked about the disciplinary case.
Helena answered without disguising the facts.
Sometimes Sofia became angry.
Helena tried not to defend herself.
One afternoon, they sat beside the water eating sandwiches.
Sofia looked at her mother.
“Did you really love him?”
Helena stared at the boats moving across the harbour.
For a long time, she considered.
“I thought I did.”
Sofia looked down.
“That’s not what I asked.”
Helena smiled sadly.
“No.”
She thought about Matthias.
The intensity.
The secrecy.
The way he’d made her feel uniquely necessary.
The future he’d described.
“I had very strong feelings for him.”
Sofia waited.
“I confused those feelings with knowing him.”
Her daughter considered.
“Did he love you?”
Helena looked toward the water.
“I don’t know.”
Sofia nodded.
For a while, they ate in silence.
Then Sofia asked, “Do you miss him?”
Helena felt the question like a hand pressed against a bruise.
“Sometimes.”
Sofia looked surprised.
Helena continued.
“I miss who I thought he was.”
She took a breath.
“And sometimes I miss how I felt when I believed him.”
Sofia looked away.
After a moment, she said, “That’s sad.”
Helena nodded.
“It is.”
They finished their sandwiches.
On the way home, Sofia asked whether Helena wanted to come to her school concert the following week.
Helena looked at her.
“Yes.”
Sofia studied her.
“You’ll actually come?”
Helena nodded.
“I’ll be there.”
She did not add a promise about making it up to her.
She simply went.
Part Six: The Work of Repair
Two years after the trial, Helena was living a quieter life.
She worked part-time for a non-profit organisation that supported people navigating complex public institutions. Her role was carefully structured around the professional restrictions still applicable to her, and she did not hold herself out as authorised to provide representation she was no longer permitted to undertake.
Much of the work was administrative.
Helping people understand letters.
Finding appropriate services.
Organising documents.
Explaining procedures in plain language.
At first, she found the pace frustrating.
She missed courtrooms.
The intellectual intensity.
The immediate consequence of a carefully constructed argument.
But she also discovered something she’d rarely allowed herself in her previous career.
Time.
She could listen to someone without searching immediately for the most persuasive interpretation of their account.
She could say she didn’t know.
She could refer a problem to someone better qualified.
She could leave work at five.
She did not become a different person overnight.
She remained impatient.
She disliked inefficiency.
She still had to resist the impulse to take over when someone approached a task differently.
But she began noticing those habits.
Sometimes, that was enough to interrupt them.
Erik visited her one afternoon.
They met at a café near the office where she’d once worked.
He had grown older.
Or perhaps Helena was simply noticing it.
They ordered coffee.
For several minutes, they spoke about ordinary things.
His children.
The firm’s new associates.
A recent holiday.
Then Erik looked at her.
“How are you really?”
Helena smiled.
“Better than I expected.”
He nodded.
They sat quietly.
Then she asked whether Freja was doing well.
“Very.”
“I’m glad.”
“She’s handling a difficult appeal.”
Helena looked down.
“She’ll be excellent.”
“She already is.”
Helena smiled faintly.
Erik watched her.
“I thought you’d ask about the firm.”
“I was trying not to.”
He laughed.
For a moment, they were almost the colleagues they’d once been.
Then Helena looked at him.
“I owe you an apology.”
He shook his head.
“We’ve done this.”
“Not properly.”
He waited.
She took a breath.
“I treated your concerns as betrayal. I made you responsible for trying to stop something I should have stopped myself.”
Erik looked down at his cup.
Helena continued.
“I was afraid that if I admitted you were right, everything I’d built would disappear.”
He looked up.
“And?”
“It disappeared anyway.”
He nodded.
For a long time, neither spoke.
Then Erik said, “Not everything.”
Helena looked at him.
He smiled faintly.
“You’re still here.”
She looked down.
The remark moved her more than she expected.
She did not cry.
She simply nodded.
In the autumn, Helena received a letter from Matthias.
It had been forwarded through the appropriate channels.
She recognised his handwriting immediately.
For several minutes, she sat at her kitchen table holding the envelope.
She considered throwing it away.
Then she opened it.
The letter was short.
Matthias wrote that he still thought about her.
He said the conviction was unjust.
He suggested that new information might eventually emerge.
He asked whether she would visit.
Near the end, he wrote that she’d been the only person who had ever truly understood him.
Helena read the letter twice.
Then placed it on the table.
For a moment, the old feeling returned.
The sensation of being uniquely necessary.
The temptation to believe that some hidden truth existed beyond what everyone else could see.
