Weeks turned to months. Colette accepted a plea deal: probation, restitution, community service, and mandatory psychiatric treatment. The foundation was dissolved, its remaining assets transferred to legitimate maternal health organizations. I testified as promised, walking the line between honesty and mercy. I described the miscarriage, the grief that had spiraled into delusion, the genuine work the foundation had done despite its fraudulent fundraising. I didn’t mention the calculated ways she’d targeted specific donors or the journal entries that suggested the deception had been planned rather than impulsive. Some would call it perjury by omission. I called it the last act of friendship I could offer.
Six months after the baby shower that had started it all, a letter arrived from the psychiatric facility where Colette was receiving inpatient care.
Sarah, they tell me writing this is part of my recovery—acknowledging the harm I’ve caused, accepting responsibility, expressing genuine remorse rather than performative apology. I’m not sure I know the difference yet. I’m not sure I know who I am when no one is watching. But I do know this: you saved me from myself. Not the way a friend would, looking away, making excuses. The way a sister would, with hard truth and harder love. I don’t expect forgiveness. I don’t even expect a response. But I needed you to know that in the wreckage of everything I destroyed, there is one thing I finally understand: the difference between being seen and being known. —Colette
I folded the letter carefully and placed it in a memory box in our closet, alongside photos from our childhood, friendship bracelets, and a piece of the pale blue shawl I’d invented as an excuse to investigate her house.
Then I drove to the baby shower venue, a converted barn now empty and quiet in the autumn light. I sat alone on the steps, watching leaves spiral down from nearby trees, thinking about all the invisible things we choose not to see in those we love. She taught me that some lies are told for love, but others—others are told because someone loved the attention more than the truth.