Notes: Written for tww100's challenge 162: rules.
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After you kill your brother at ten years old, your entire life becomes one endless attempt at atonement.
She did everything: followed the rules, got good grades, got into the right schools, married a successful lawyer, and when he went into politics, she followed him into it and discovered that she was actually good.
You don't have to prove anything to them, her husband told her when she called home. Yes, she said, I do.
Politics? her father asked her. That's what Joshua would have done. If he was alive.
I know, Joanie said, but he had already hung up.