Sam remained in the doorway.<\/p>\n
"Are you still mad?"<\/p>\n
I looked at him.<\/p>\n
Six years old.<\/p>\n
Old enough to remember the sound a soccer ball made when it struck a television screen.<\/p>\n
Old enough to recognize tension between adults.<\/p>\n
Far too young to carry responsibility for something his mother had engineered.<\/p>\n
I crouched slightly.<\/p>\n
"I'm not mad at you."<\/p>\n
His eyes searched my face.<\/p>\n
"Really?"<\/p>\n
"Really."<\/p>\n
Behind him, Rachel stood with one hand resting on the doorframe.<\/p>\n
She looked uncomfortable.<\/p>\n
Good, I thought.<\/p>\n
Then immediately corrected myself.<\/p>\n
Not good.<\/p>\n
Necessary.<\/p>\n
There was a difference, and I needed to remember it.<\/p>\n
Wyatt came running from the hallway holding a plastic dinosaur.<\/p>\n
"Aunt Candace!"<\/p>\n
His enthusiasm stopped when he noticed everyone standing strangely still.<\/p>\n
Rachel stepped aside.<\/p>\n
"Come in."<\/p>\n
The invitation sounded stiff.<\/p>\n
I'd entered Rachel's house countless times.<\/p>\n
Usually she'd shout that the door was open and I'd walk through without ceremony.<\/p>\n
Today every movement felt deliberate.<\/p>\n
I stepped inside.<\/p>\n
The boys settled on the living-room rug.<\/p>\n
Rachel sat on the edge of an armchair.<\/p>\n
I took the sofa.<\/p>\n
Nobody seemed sure how to begin.<\/p>\n
Finally Rachel looked at me.<\/p>\n
"You wanted to be here."<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
"Then maybe you should start."<\/p>\n
I shook my head.<\/p>\n
"They need to hear it from you."<\/p>\n
Her jaw tightened.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I wondered whether she'd refuse after all.<\/p>\n
Then Sam spoke.<\/p>\n
"Are we in trouble?"<\/p>\n
Rachel's face changed.<\/p>\n
Whatever resistance she'd been holding seemed to lose strength.<\/p>\n
"No."<\/p>\n
Sam glanced at me.<\/p>\n
"Because of the TV?"<\/p>\n
"No," Rachel repeated.<\/p>\n
Wyatt climbed onto the chair beside her.<\/p>\n
"But we broke it."<\/p>\n
Rachel looked down at him.<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
His face crumpled slightly.<\/p>\n
I leaned forward.<\/p>\n
"Wyatt, listen to your mom."<\/p>\n
Rachel drew a breath.<\/p>\n
"What happened at Aunt Candace and Uncle Nick's house wasn't your fault."<\/p>\n
Sam frowned.<\/p>\n
"But we kicked the ball."<\/p>\n
"You did."<\/p>\n
"Then it was our fault."<\/p>\n
The logic was brutally simple.<\/p>\n
Rachel closed her eyes for a second.<\/p>\n
When she opened them, her voice was quieter.<\/p>\n
"I told you to do it."<\/p>\n
Neither boy answered.<\/p>\n
"You did what I told you because I'm your mom and you're supposed to trust me."<\/p>\n
Sam picked at a loose thread on the rug.<\/p>\n
"Why did you tell us?"<\/p>\n
Rachel looked toward me.<\/p>\n
I gave her nothing.<\/p>\n
This was hers.<\/p>\n
She swallowed.<\/p>\n
"Because I was upset about something that had nothing to do with you."<\/p>\n
"The TV?"<\/p>\n
"No."<\/p>\n
"Then what?"<\/p>\n
Rachel pressed her lips together.<\/p>\n
Children have a merciless ability to ask for the one explanation adults would prefer to hide inside abstraction.<\/p>\n
"I was jealous."<\/p>\n
Sam looked confused.<\/p>\n
"Of the TV?"<\/p>\n
Rachel almost smiled.<\/p>\n
"Sort of."<\/p>\n
He waited.<\/p>\n
She had no choice except honesty.<\/p>\n
"I was jealous of Aunt Candace and Uncle Nick. Their house looked nice, and they had bought something new, and I was comparing what they had with what I had."<\/p>\n
Wyatt studied his dinosaur.<\/p>\n
"Why?"<\/p>\n
Rachel glanced at him.<\/p>\n
"Because sometimes grown-ups make stupid choices when they're feeling bad."<\/p>\n
Sam looked at me.<\/p>\n
"You were sad."<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
His mouth tightened.<\/p>\n
"I'm sorry."<\/p>\n
The words struck me hard.<\/p>\n
"No."<\/p>\n
I moved from the sofa to the rug so I was closer to him.<\/p>\n
"You do not owe me that apology."<\/p>\n
"But I kicked it."<\/p>\n
"Because your mom told you to."<\/p>\n
"I knew it might break."<\/p>\n
"Did you understand why she wanted you to break it?"<\/p>\n
He shook his head.<\/p>\n
"Did you want to hurt me?"<\/p>\n
Another quick shake.<\/p>\n
"Then you're not carrying this."<\/p>\n
Rachel flinched at the phrasing.<\/p>\n
I noticed.<\/p>\n
But she didn't interrupt.<\/p>\n
Wyatt held up the dinosaur.<\/p>\n
"Mom said we could get toys."<\/p>\n
Rachel's cheeks colored.<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
"Can I keep it?"<\/p>\n
The question was so unexpected that I nearly laughed.<\/p>\n
Rachel looked at me.<\/p>\n
I said, "Of course you can keep your dinosaur."<\/p>\n
Wyatt relaxed immediately.<\/p>\n
Sam still looked troubled.<\/p>\n
"Are you mad at Mom?"<\/p>\n
There it was.<\/p>\n
The question everyone else in the family had spent weeks trying to complicate.<\/p>\n
I considered my answer carefully.<\/p>\n
"I was very angry about what she did."<\/p>\n
"Now?"<\/p>\n
"I'm still not okay with it."<\/p>\n
Rachel stared at the carpet.<\/p>\n
"But people can do something wrong and still get a chance to make better choices afterward."<\/p>\n
Sam thought about that.<\/p>\n
"Like saying sorry?"<\/p>\n
"That's one part."<\/p>\n
Rachel finally looked at me.<\/p>\n
I could see that the words were landing in two directions.<\/p>\n
"Another part," I continued, "is fixing what you can fix."<\/p>\n
Wyatt said, "The TV got fixed."<\/p>\n
"It did."<\/p>\n
His face brightened.<\/p>\n
"So everything's okay?"<\/p>\n
I smiled.<\/p>\n
"Not exactly."<\/p>\n
His shoulders fell.<\/p>\n
"But it's getting better."<\/p>\n
Rachel cleared her throat.<\/p>\n
"There is something else I need to tell you."<\/p>\n
Both boys looked at her.<\/p>\n
"When I told Aunt Candace that breaking the TV was an accident, I lied."<\/p>\n
Sam's gaze dropped.<\/p>\n
Rachel noticed.<\/p>\n
"You tried to tell the truth."<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
"And I stopped you."<\/p>\n
Another nod.<\/p>\n
"That was wrong too."<\/p>\n
Sam didn't answer.<\/p>\n
Rachel's voice became uneven.<\/p>\n
"If an adult ever asks you to do something you think is wrong\u2014even me\u2014you are allowed to say no."<\/p>\n
Wyatt looked horrified.<\/p>\n
"We can tell you no?"<\/p>\n
Despite everything, I laughed.<\/p>\n
Rachel did too.<\/p>\n
The tension in the room loosened for half a second.<\/p>\n
"Not about brushing your teeth," Rachel said.<\/p>\n
Wyatt looked disappointed.<\/p>\n
"But if someone asks you to break something, hurt someone, steal something, lie about something\u2014then yes. You can say no."<\/p>\n
Sam glanced at me.<\/p>\n
"What if they get mad?"<\/p>\n
The question stopped us both.<\/p>\n
I answered before Rachel could.<\/p>\n
"Then you find another grown-up you trust and tell them."<\/p>\n
"Like Uncle Nick?"<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
"Or Grandma?"<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
Rachel nodded.<\/p>\n
"Absolutely."<\/p>\n
Sam's shoulders finally lowered.<\/p>\n
The whole conversation lasted perhaps twenty minutes.<\/p>\n
It changed more than three weeks of arguments.<\/p>\n
When I stood to leave, Wyatt hugged me around the waist.<\/p>\n
Sam followed.<\/p>\n
Rachel walked me to the door.<\/p>\n
Outside, the afternoon sun had turned the parked cars bright enough to make me squint.<\/p>\n
Before I reached the steps, Rachel spoke.<\/p>\n
"Candace."<\/p>\n
I turned.<\/p>\n
She stood just inside the doorway.<\/p>\n
"That was horrible."<\/p>\n
I raised an eyebrow.<\/p>\n
"For you?"<\/p>\n
"For me."<\/p>\n
"Probably."<\/p>\n
She looked back toward the living room.<\/p>\n
"I didn't realize Sam thought you blamed him."<\/p>\n
"I think he blamed himself."<\/p>\n
Rachel's expression tightened.<\/p>\n
"I did that."<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
Usually I would have softened the agreement.<\/p>\n
Added something like, but you didn't mean to.<\/p>\n
I didn't.<\/p>\n
Rachel nodded slowly.<\/p>\n
"I'll transfer the first payment Friday."<\/p>\n
"Okay."<\/p>\n
"First of every month after that."<\/p>\n
"That's fine."<\/p>\n
She hesitated.<\/p>\n
"I still think canceling the party was brutal."<\/p>\n
I almost smiled.<\/p>\n
"You can think that."<\/p>\n
Her eyes narrowed slightly.<\/p>\n
Then, unexpectedly, she smiled too.<\/p>\n
Only a little.<\/p>\n
"I hate when you do that."<\/p>\n
"Do what?"<\/p>\n
"Refuse to argue."<\/p>\n
"I've spent ten years refusing to argue with you."<\/p>\n
"No. Before, you'd refuse because you wanted everything calm."<\/p>\n
She folded her arms.<\/p>\n
"Now you're refusing because you don't need me to agree."<\/p>\n
That observation surprised me.<\/p>\n
"Maybe."<\/p>\n
She leaned against the frame.<\/p>\n
"That's worse."<\/p>\n
"For you."<\/p>\n
"Exactly."<\/p>\n
I drove home thinking about the distinction.<\/p>\n
Rachel was right.<\/p>\n
Before the television incident, my silence had usually been surrender disguised as maturity.<\/p>\n
Now silence meant something different.<\/p>\n
I could state a boundary without convincing the other person that it was reasonable.<\/p>\n
I could decline an argument without abandoning my position.<\/p>\n
Nick was in the garage when I arrived.<\/p>\n
He put down a screwdriver as I entered.<\/p>\n
"How'd it go?"<\/p>\n
"Better than I expected."<\/p>\n
"The boys okay?"<\/p>\n
"I think so."<\/p>\n
"Rachel?"<\/p>\n
I considered.<\/p>\n
"Uncomfortable."<\/p>\n
"Good."<\/p>\n
I gave him a look.<\/p>\n
He smiled.<\/p>\n
"Necessary?"<\/p>\n
"Necessary."<\/p>\n
He came inside with me.<\/p>\n
The repaired television hung on the wall.<\/p>\n
Perfect black screen.<\/p>\n
No visible trace of what had happened.<\/p>\n
Nick stopped in front of it.<\/p>\n
"Funny."<\/p>\n
"What?"<\/p>\n
"We wanted this thing for six months."<\/p>\n
"And?"<\/p>\n
"Now every time I look at it, I think about my family."<\/p>\n
"That's unfortunate."<\/p>\n
He laughed.<\/p>\n
Then his expression grew serious.<\/p>\n
"I've been thinking about what you said."<\/p>\n
"Which thing?"<\/p>\n
"That there was never actually peace when Rachel visited."<\/p>\n
I sat on the couch.<\/p>\n
Nick remained standing.<\/p>\n
"Growing up, my parents praised me for being easy."<\/p>\n
I waited.<\/p>\n
"I thought that meant I was mature."<\/p>\n
"You probably were."<\/p>\n
"Maybe. But I also think they meant I was the kid who would give something up without making them miserable."<\/p>\n
He sat beside me.<\/p>\n
"That's how Rachel got the bigger room. That's how she chose where we went for dinner. Which holidays we spent with which relatives. Everything."<\/p>\n
"And it followed you into adulthood."<\/p>\n
"Yeah."<\/p>\n
He looked at me.<\/p>\n
"And then I made it follow you."<\/p>\n
There was no defensiveness in his voice.<\/p>\n
That mattered more than an elaborate apology.<\/p>\n
"I let it," I said.<\/p>\n
"You shouldn't have had to fight me too."<\/p>\n
"No."<\/p>\n
He nodded.<\/p>\n
Then we sat there quietly.<\/p>\n
The first payment arrived that Friday.<\/p>\n
Exactly when Rachel said it would.<\/p>\n
No message.<\/p>\n
No comment.<\/p>\n
Just the transfer.<\/p>\n
The next month, another one arrived.<\/p>\n
Then another.<\/p>\n
I didn't remind her.<\/p>\n
She didn't miss any.<\/p>\n
Family gatherings changed.<\/p>\n
At first, the difference was awkward.<\/p>\n
At Nick's mother's house, Rachel and I spoke politely but minimally.<\/p>\n
Nobody mentioned the television.<\/p>\n
Nobody mentioned the canceled party either.<\/p>\n
I suspected several relatives wanted to ask questions, but my single family-group message had apparently accomplished what I'd intended.<\/p>\n
The facts were available.<\/p>\n
I wasn't going to audition for belief.<\/p>\n
Sam and Wyatt behaved normally around me again.<\/p>\n
Sam took longer.<\/p>\n
Sometimes I caught him studying my face when Rachel and I were in the same room.<\/p>\n
It made me wonder how much children noticed about the emotional weather adults thought they were hiding.<\/p>\n
One afternoon, several months after the birthday, Sam approached while I was washing dishes after a family lunch.<\/p>\n
"Aunt Candace?"<\/p>\n
"What's up?"<\/p>\n
He held a remote-control car.<\/p>\n
"The wheel came off."<\/p>\n
"Let me see."<\/p>\n
He handed it to me.<\/p>\n
I dried my hands and examined it.<\/p>\n
"Probably fixable."<\/p>\n
He watched closely.<\/p>\n
Then he said, "Mom said I should ask before touching Uncle Nick's tools."<\/p>\n
I looked toward the dining room.<\/p>\n
Rachel was helping clear plates.<\/p>\n
She wasn't watching us.<\/p>\n
"That's a good idea."<\/p>\n
Sam nodded.<\/p>\n
"She asks now."<\/p>\n
"Asks what?"<\/p>\n
"Before using people's stuff."<\/p>\n
The statement sounded ordinary.<\/p>\n
But I understood what he was telling me.<\/p>\n
Rachel had changed something at home.<\/p>\n
Perhaps small.<\/p>\n
Perhaps imperfect.<\/p>\n
Still real.<\/p>\n
I fixed the wheel with a tiny screwdriver and gave him the car.<\/p>\n
He grinned.<\/p>\n
"Thanks."<\/p>\n
As he ran away, I looked across the room.<\/p>\n
Rachel met my eyes.<\/p>\n
She had heard.<\/p>\n
Neither of us said anything.<\/p>\n
The months passed.<\/p>\n
Her payments continued.<\/p>\n
The hostility eased slowly rather than dramatically.<\/p>\n
There was no magical dinner where everything returned to normal.<\/p>\n
I wouldn't have trusted that anyway.<\/p>\n
Some relationships don't need restoration to their previous condition.<\/p>\n
Sometimes the previous condition was the problem.<\/p>\n
Then, one Saturday morning, my phone rang.<\/p>\n
Rachel.<\/p>\n
We hadn't spoken privately in weeks.<\/p>\n
"Hello?"<\/p>\n
"Are you home?"<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
A pause.<\/p>\n
"Could I come over?"<\/p>\n
I looked around the kitchen.<\/p>\n
Nick was outside working on the fence.<\/p>\n
"For what?"<\/p>\n
"To talk."<\/p>\n
My first instinct was suspicion.<\/p>\n
That was new too.<\/p>\n
Before, I'd automatically said yes whenever Rachel needed something.<\/p>\n
Now I asked why.<\/p>\n
She seemed to understand.<\/p>\n
"Nothing bad."<\/p>\n
"That's not very specific."<\/p>\n
"I know."<\/p>\n
Another pause.<\/p>\n
"I owe you a conversation."<\/p>\n
I considered for several seconds.<\/p>\n
"All right."<\/p>\n
"I'll be there in twenty minutes."<\/p>\n
The call ended.<\/p>\n
I told Nick.<\/p>\n
He leaned through the open back door.<\/p>\n
"Want me inside?"<\/p>\n
"No."<\/p>\n
"You sure?"<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
He studied my face.<\/p>\n
Then nodded.<\/p>\n
Twenty-five minutes later, a car stopped outside.<\/p>\n
I heard the door close.<\/p>\n
Footsteps came up the front path.<\/p>\n
The bell rang.<\/p>\n
That alone surprised me.<\/p>\n
Rachel usually knocked once while opening the door herself.<\/p>\n
I walked through the living room and unlocked it.<\/p>\n
Rachel stood on the porch.<\/p>\n
Her hands were empty.<\/p>\n
No children.<\/p>\n
No bags.<\/p>\n
No problem she needed me to solve.<\/p>\n
For several seconds, neither of us moved.<\/p>\n
Then she said something so ordinary that it almost escaped me.<\/p>\n
"Can I come in?"<\/p>\n
I stared at her.<\/p>\n
Rachel noticed.<\/p>\n
"What?"<\/p>\n
"Nothing."<\/p>\n
But it wasn't nothing.<\/p>\n
For ten years, Rachel had moved through my home as if being family meant permanent access.<\/p>\n
The question was new.<\/p>\n
Can I come in?<\/p>\n
Not I'm here.<\/p>\n
Not Move.<\/p>\n
Not Where's Nick?<\/p>\n
A question.<\/p>\n
I stepped aside.<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
She entered.<\/p>\n
I closed the door.<\/p>\n
We sat at the kitchen table.<\/p>\n
Rachel ran one finger along the edge of a placemat.<\/p>\n
"I've been thinking about what happened."<\/p>\n
I waited.<\/p>\n
"And before you say anything, I'm not asking you to pretend it wasn't awful."<\/p>\n
"I wasn't going to."<\/p>\n
"I know."<\/p>\n
She gave a small, embarrassed smile.<\/p>\n
"I used to know exactly how you'd respond to me."<\/p>\n
"What do you mean?"<\/p>\n
"I knew you'd get annoyed. Then I'd push. Then Nick would try to calm everybody down."<\/p>\n
She looked toward the window.<\/p>\n
"And eventually you would decide the fight wasn't worth it."<\/p>\n
I didn't disagree.<\/p>\n
Rachel continued.<\/p>\n
"I started treating that like permission."<\/p>\n
There it was.<\/p>\n
The thing I hadn't known whether she'd ever understand.<\/p>\n
"I told myself you didn't really care."<\/p>\n
Her mouth tightened.<\/p>\n
"But I think I knew you cared. I just knew you'd probably let it go."<\/p>\n
I folded my hands on the table.<\/p>\n
Rachel looked at me.<\/p>\n
"I'm sorry."<\/p>\n
Not rushed.<\/p>\n
Not followed by but.<\/p>\n
Just the words.<\/p>\n
"I shouldn't have involved the boys."<\/p>\n
"No."<\/p>\n
"I shouldn't have broken your TV."<\/p>\n
"No."<\/p>\n
"I shouldn't have lied about it."<\/p>\n
"No."<\/p>\n
A nervous laugh escaped her.<\/p>\n
"You're not making this easy."<\/p>\n
"I'm listening."<\/p>\n
She nodded.<\/p>\n
"I also shouldn't have spent years making comments about your house and your clothes and everything else."<\/p>\n
That surprised me more than the television apology.<\/p>\n
Rachel looked embarrassed.<\/p>\n
"I thought if I made what you had seem stupid, I wouldn't feel as bad about not having it."<\/p>\n
I let the honesty settle.<\/p>\n
"Did it work?"<\/p>\n
"No."<\/p>\n
We both laughed quietly.<\/p>\n
The tension softened.<\/p>\n
Not disappeared.<\/p>\n
Softened.<\/p>\n
"I accept your apology," I said.<\/p>\n
Rachel's shoulders shifted as though she'd been holding them unnaturally high.<\/p>\n
"But\u2014"<\/p>\n
"There it is."<\/p>\n
I almost smiled.<\/p>\n
"But accepting it doesn't mean things immediately go back to how they were."<\/p>\n
"I know."<\/p>\n
That answer mattered.<\/p>\n
She looked around the kitchen.<\/p>\n
At the cabinet hardware Nick had spent an entire Sunday installing.<\/p>\n
At the repaired flooring.<\/p>\n
At the framed print above the window I'd found cheaply at an estate sale and loved enough to keep.<\/p>\n
"It's a good house."<\/p>\n
I waited for the familiar edge.<\/p>\n
It didn't come.<\/p>\n
"It is," I said.<\/p>\n
Rachel nodded.<\/p>\n
"You worked hard on it."<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
Again, no sarcasm.<\/p>\n
No comparison.<\/p>\n
Just acknowledgment.<\/p>\n
She stood a few minutes later.<\/p>\n
At the front door, she paused.<\/p>\n
"See you Sunday?"<\/p>\n
Nick's mother was having everyone over.<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
Rachel stepped onto the porch.<\/p>\n
Then turned.<\/p>\n
"I won't bring a soccer ball."<\/p>\n
I stared at her.<\/p>\n
She smiled.<\/p>\n
I laughed despite myself.<\/p>\n
"Probably wise."<\/p>\n
After she left, I returned to the kitchen.<\/p>\n
Nick appeared at the back doorway.<\/p>\n
"How'd it go?"<\/p>\n
"Fine."<\/p>\n
He wiped his hands on a cloth.<\/p>\n
"Fine fine?"<\/p>\n
I considered.<\/p>\n
"Better than fine."<\/p>\n
"What happened?"<\/p>\n
"She apologized."<\/p>\n
"For the television?"<\/p>\n
"For more than that."<\/p>\n
His eyebrows rose.<\/p>\n
"Wow."<\/p>\n
"She also waited outside."<\/p>\n
Nick looked confused for a moment.<\/p>\n
Then he understood.<\/p>\n
"She asked before coming in?"<\/p>\n
"Yes."<\/p>\n
A smile spread slowly across his face.<\/p>\n
"That's new."<\/p>\n
"Very."<\/p>\n
We both looked through the living room.<\/p>\n
The television was mounted exactly where it had been before.<\/p>\n
The replacement panel showed no scar.<\/p>\n
From a distance, there was no evidence anything had happened.<\/p>\n
But the important repair hadn't happened to the television.<\/p>\n
It had happened around it.<\/p>\n
Rachel had learned that being welcome was different from being entitled.<\/p>\n
Nick had learned that keeping the peace by sacrificing the easiest person wasn't peace.<\/p>\n
And I had learned that generosity without boundaries eventually teaches the wrong lesson.<\/p>\n
The television incident had begun with a shattered screen.<\/p>\n
It was becoming something else.<\/p>\n
Not reconciliation yet.<\/p>\n
Not completely.<\/p>\n
But the first evidence that what had broken between us might be rebuilt differently instead of simply glued back into its old shape.<\/p>\n
And for the first time in years, I didn't feel responsible for doing all the rebuilding myself.<\/p>\n
Sam remained in the doorway. "Are you still mad?" I looked at him. Six years old. Old enough to remember the sound a soccer ball made when it struck a … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2349,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chapter-story"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2353"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2353\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2365,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2353\/revisions\/2365"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thechapterstory.online\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}