I knew Daryl was trying to give me time and space to be with the kids, and most of the time I appreciated it, but I wasn't sleeping and it was starting to get to me. The third night I started to argue, but he took my kids' side in pressuring me to sleep there again, and I didn't know how to turn them down without causing more hurt feelings.

I planned to stay upstairs with the kids, rather than have a repeat of the night before, but my husband asked if we could talk, and said he'd invited Jenny to be there so I'd be more comfortable. It was thoughtful of him, and I felt I owed him at least a few conversations if it helped him deal with the end of our marriage.

I put the kids to bed, and then went downstairs. They'd built a fire in the fire pit on the patio and were sitting out there bundled in blankets, probably so I'd feel less trapped. I joined them and took the glass Jenny handed me. I peered at the amber liquid and raised my eyebrows. "Bourbon," she explained, "we save it for the really difficult stuff," and I laughed. "Fair enough," I said, sipping cautiously.

Raph ran a hand through his hair nervously. "Look, last night I was an ass and I'm sorry. I was just feeling pissed off and I'd had a lot to drink, and I didn't handle it well. I don't really know how to do this and there's isn't exactly a handbook. But I think we need to have a real conversation about a few things just to get it all out there."

He glanced at my sister, who nodded encouragingly. "Alright, to start with, I think I can honestly say that I'm not head over heels in love with you anymore, and I'm not going to try and win you back or anything. Not sure whether you were worried about that, but there it is. I'd basically grieved you and was moving on, and then all of a sudden you weren't dead and it threw me for a loop. I think maybe I'm still grieving for our old life, but that's not just about you. Everything has changed, and I'm constantly thinking about what we lost, including my job and whole way of life, and it's overwhelming sometimes."

I nodded and sipped my drink, wondering where this was going. "Second, it's none of my business what you do with him and I honestly don't want to know. I flipped out last night because it hit me that what you have with him isn't what you had with me, and it was . . . not even jealousy really, just this sense that maybe I never really knew you."

"That's not true," I said quickly. "You just don't know me now, at least not some parts of me."

He nodded, taking another drink. "Yeah, I kinda figured that out last night after the booze wore off. And that's the third thing. I don't need you to tell me everything, but can you help me understand what your triggers are so I don't set them off again? For that matter, so no one sets them off."

I swallowed another burning mouthful and set down my glass, twisting my fingers into the blanket I'd wrapped around me. I felt the familiar anxiety twisting in my gut, but I wanted to help them understand, and they were people I could trust. "I was . . . captured, by this guy who had another community kind of close to where we were. He pretended to be this really great leader, but he was sadistic and had some really awful people working for him. Anyway, he wanted information about our group, and he captured Maggie and me and tried to get us to give up the information."

"Neither of us would talk, so he thought he'd hurt one of us to make the other cave, and it was me that he picked to hurt because I pissed him off the most. Of course, Daryl and Rick and Glenn and Michonne were doing everything they could to find us, but by the time they did he had used a knife to . . ."

I curled my knees to my chest and wrapped my arms around them, trying to stop myself from shaking. "He raped me with a knife. 'Penetration with a foreign object' as it says in the criminal code. Sliced me up pretty badly, but before he could do any more Daryl got there and shot the guard, who was holding me down."

I knew I could stop the story there, but I wanted to confess the whole thing so that if they were going to accept me for who I now was, they would know all of it. "Once my hands were free, I took the knife he had used on me and I ripped open his throat with it before Daryl could do anything. There was just," I closed my eyes, remembering," . . . a river of blood all over me, but I wanted to watch him die. And then I stabbed his head over and over until it started to come apart . . . Daryl had to cover me up and practically carry me out of there, and he and Maggie had to try and stop the bleeding in the truck by putting pressure on the wounds. I was screaming and trying to get away from her because of the pain and Daryl had to hold me down . . . and then I passed out and they didn't know if I'd make it. Herschel stitched me up and . . . and now when I'm alone with a man and I feel trapped, sometimes I lose my shit."

I finally looked up and saw their faces in the firelight, streaked with tears. Jenny, a rape survivor herself, walked over and wrapped her arms around me, soaking my hair with her tears. We stayed like that for a minute, and then she pressed a kiss to the top of my head and sat back down.

Raph wiped his face with his sleeve. "I'm sorry," he choked out. "I know that means fuck all, but if I had known you'd go through that I would have driven down there and refused to leave until they let me through the border."

I shook my head, "You know perfectly well they would have shot you. And then where would the kids be? And anyway, I survived and I'm here now. Does it . . . does it bother you that I killed him?"

My sister looked at me thoughtfully over her drink. She was a pacifist, through and through, as was Raph, and at one time I'd considered myself to be as well. "Not in the sense that I think you're a bad person or something," she said. "But I wish you hadn't had to do it. And to be honest, it's hard to imagine you doing that, at least in such a violent way. But it doesn't change the way I love you or how proud I am of you."

Raph nodded. "That goes for me too. And it helps me understand some of the ways you're different than you used to be. And how something that intense could form a pretty strong bond between people."

I rested my elbows on my knees and finished the last of my drink. "Was there a fourth part of this talk?" I asked, and Raph and Jenny looked at each other before he nodded. "Yeah. Well, more just something I wanted you to be aware of. Jenny and I had started spending more time together before we got your letter. Nothing we've really defined yet, but we're sort of exploring the possibility."

I looked at the two of them and realized that they had changed a lot too, with everything they'd gone through. A couple of years ago their personalities clashed regularly - Jenny thought Raph should be more responsible and he thought she was uptight - but now they'd been molded by their circumstances into more compatible people. I smiled at them and got up from my chair, setting my glass down on the edge of the fire pit.

"I'm really happy for you," I said, giving them both hugs. "You have my full support, even if it's kind of weird." My sister elbowed me gently. "Let's not go there - weird doesn't begin to describe you and Daryl."

"Speaking of which," Raph cleared his throat, "I think you guys should take the camper van. You could park it over at the house you're clearing out and it would give you your own space. Daryl doesn't seem to be into the whole crowd thing."

I could tell he was still uncomfortable discussing Daryl, but he was really trying and I appreciated the effort. We'd purchased a converted Sprinter van several years before, for weekend trips to the coast, and it was a cozy space with a comfortable bed that would be nice and private until Daryl and I had something more permanent.

"Thank you, that's a really great offer. And perfect timing, because I'm not getting much sleep on the floor with the kids" I said, heading back in for a last sleepless night.