It had been six long years since I’d heard her voice. Six years since I walked in on the betrayal that shattered my marriage and my family in one blow — my husband and my sister tangled together in the bed I’d shared with him. I threw them both out of my life that day, blocking every number, deleting every photo, and vowing never to speak to either of them again.

Last week, my phone rang from an unknown number. I almost ignored it, but something made me swipe “accept.” The second I said hello, a voice I’d once known better than my own came barreling through the speaker — raw, loud, and trembling. It was my sister. “You ruined my life!” she screamed before I could even breathe.

She poured venom into every word, accusing me of turning the family against her, of poisoning our parents’ minds, of making her “the villain” in a story she claimed wasn’t as it seemed. My hands shook, my heart pounded. I wanted to hang up, but something in her tone — a strange edge between rage and desperation — kept me silent.

Then she said it. “He’s dead. And it’s your fault.” My breath caught. She told me my ex-husband had passed away suddenly the week before, and that if I’d forgiven them years ago, “things might have been different.” I didn’t know whether to laugh, cry, or scream. In that moment, I realized she hadn’t called for reconciliation. She’d called to find someone to blame. And I wasn’t going to carry her guilt. Not anymore.