Final part- My one-year-old daughter was struck by my mother-in-law for…

It was the kind of statement that tried to sound compassionate while sidestepping their own complicity.

I got a call from Tasha.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted.

Tasha sighed. “That’s fair. Listen—some moms in the group have questions. They’re scared. Not of you. Of… everything. Can you come next meeting? Just sit with them?”

I thought about saying no. I thought about protecting my peace.

Then I thought about the young mom in the circle with the baby strapped to her chest. The baby who would grow up believing the world was safe because her mother learned to trust her gut.

“I’ll come,” I said.

That meeting, the basement was fuller than usual.

Women sat with babies on hips, diapers poking out of bags, eyes tired and wide.

No one asked me about the trial.

They asked me things like:

How did you know something was wrong?

What did you ignore at first?

How do you tell the difference between being anxious and being right?

Those questions weren’t about gossip.

They were about survival.

So I told them the truth in pieces they could carry.

“I knew because my body knew,” I said. “I knew because bruises don’t happen like that on accident. I knew because her story kept changing. I knew because I felt small in my own home.”

A woman with a newborn raised her hand, voice trembling.

“My mother-in-law says my baby cries because I’m weak,” she whispered. “She says I’m making her needy.”

I felt something in my chest tighten.

“That’s not about the baby,” I said gently. “That’s about control.”

The woman’s eyes filled with tears.

Tasha handed her a tissue.

After the meeting, I walked out into the parking lot and realized something I hadn’t expected.

The work didn’t replace Lily.

Nothing would.

But it built something around the hole she left—something steady enough that I didn’t fall in every day.

Later that month, I got another letter from the correctional facility.

Same careful handwriting. Same sharpness under the neatness.

Emma,

They are dragging my name through the dirt again. They are inventing stories. That man—David—was always unstable. Always bitter. You are doing this. You are poisoning people.

You should have been grateful. You should have respected me. You don’t know what you’ve done.

Brenda

I read it once.

Then I took it to Lily’s grave.

I didn’t leave it there. I didn’t give Brenda that kind of space near my daughter.

I held it in my hands while standing over Lily’s headstone, the grass bright green around me, spring finally warming the air.

“Do you see this?” I whispered to Lily. “Even now, she thinks she’s the victim.”

I folded the letter slowly.

“I’m not responding,” I said. “That’s the boundary. She doesn’t get my voice anymore.”

Then I tore the letter into small pieces and threw them away in the trash can at the cemetery entrance.

The wind lifted a few scraps of paper, but they caught in the metal slats and stayed there, trapped.

It felt symbolic in a way I didn’t fully understand until later.

That summer, Detective Harris called me.

I hadn’t spoken to him since the second trial. I assumed he’d moved on to other cases, other disasters.

“Mrs. Evans,” he said. His voice was different now. Less detached. More human. “It’s Harris.”

My spine went straight.

“What is it?” I asked.

He cleared his throat. “We’re reopening Grace Evans’ case.”

I held my breath.

“David gave a formal statement,” Harris continued. “The evidence from your case… it changes how we look at the past. We can’t charge Brenda again right now because she’s already serving a life sentence, but we can officially recognize Grace. We can correct the record.”

The word record hit me like something physical.

A record is what people point to when they want truth to be tidy.

For decades, Grace’s record had been tidy enough to ignore.

Now it wouldn’t be.

“David wants to meet you,” Harris said carefully. “Only if you’re willing.”

I thought about David’s voice on the phone. The cracked guilt in it. The way he’d said, you’re not crazy.

“I’ll meet him,” I said.

We met in a small diner off the highway, the kind with laminated menus and coffee refills that never stop. David was older than I expected, his hair mostly gray, his hands rough. He looked like a man who’d lived with a heavy secret for too long.

He stood when I walked in, then hesitated like he wasn’t sure what a person does in this situation.

“I’m sorry,” he said immediately. “I’m sorry I’m adding to your pain.”

“You’re not,” I said. My voice surprised me with how steady it was. “You’re naming it.”

David’s eyes filled.

He slid a small folder across the table.

Inside was a copy of Grace’s death certificate. A faded photo of Grace as a newborn. A legal document with Brenda’s signature from decades ago—an old petition David had tried to file, dismissed.

And one more thing.

A cassette tape.

David touched it like it was fragile.

“That’s the 911 call,” he said. “Sarah got a copy. I… I couldn’t listen to it alone. I thought maybe… maybe you’d want to hear it, once. So you know you’re not imagining the pattern.”

My stomach twisted.

I didn’t want to hear Brenda’s voice again.

But I knew something about monsters: they thrive in silence.

So I nodded.

We asked the waitress for an old cassette player. She laughed, then disappeared into the back like she was digging up history. Ten minutes later she returned with a dusty boombox and set it on the table like she was delivering a relic.

David pressed play.

There was static, then a click, then Brenda’s voice, younger but unmistakable.

She sounded upset, yes.

But under the upset was something else.

Annoyance.

Impatience.

“She won’t stop,” Brenda said into the phone. “She won’t stop crying. I just… I just needed her to stop.”

David made a sound like he’d been punched.

My hands clenched around the edge of the table.

The recording continued, Brenda shifting into a panic tone, calling it an accident, saying she didn’t know what happened, saying she was trying to help.

But the first words mattered.

She won’t stop. I needed her to stop.

I turned off the tape before it finished.

Silence sat between us.

David stared at his hands.

“I left,” he whispered. “And I hate myself for it.”

“You survived her,” I said softly. “That matters. And you came back now. That matters too.”

David’s eyes lifted to mine, shocked.

“I thought you’d hate me,” he said.

“I hated the wrong person for a long time,” I admitted. “Mostly myself. I’m done doing that.”

We sat there, two people tied together by the same kind of loss, and for the first time since Lily died, my grief didn’t feel isolating.

It felt shared.

That fall, Grace’s case was officially reclassified. The state issued a statement acknowledging serious concerns about the original investigation and recognizing Grace as a likely victim of intentional harm.

It didn’t change the past.

But it changed the record.

And records matter.

Because records are what monsters hide behind.

Part 8

The first time Mark contacted me after disappearing, it wasn’t with a phone call.

It was with a package.

No return address.

Just my name on the label in handwriting I hadn’t seen in years.

I stood in my apartment hallway holding the box like it might explode. My heartbeat was loud in my ears. My hands were steady, but my stomach churned.

I carried it inside, set it on my kitchen table, and stared at it for a full minute before opening it.

Inside was a single object wrapped in brown paper.

A baby book.

Lily’s baby book.

The one I thought I’d lost in the chaos of moving, the one I’d torn the house apart looking for back when my grief was still loud and frantic and desperate.

I unwrapped it slowly, like I was afraid to touch Lily’s memory too hard.

On the inside cover, tucked into the pocket, was a letter.

Emma,

I don’t know if you’ll read this. I don’t know if you should. But I can’t carry it anymore.

I found this in a storage bin when I moved. I think Mom took it from our house. I think she wanted pieces of Lily, like she wanted ownership of her even after she died.

I’m sending it back because it belongs to you.

I’m sorry.

I’m sorry I failed Lily.

I’m sorry I failed you.

I’ve been in therapy. I’ve been sober for nine months. I wasn’t drinking when Lily died, but I started after, because I didn’t want to feel anything. I didn’t want to admit what I knew and didn’t want to see.

I did see it, Emma. Not all at once. But slowly, like a curtain lifting.

I believed her because it was easier than believing you. And I hate myself for that.

There’s something else.

Mom wrote me a letter from prison. I didn’t show you at first because I didn’t want to drag you back into it. But after Grace… after the article… after David… I read it differently.

She didn’t confess outright. She’s not capable of that. But she said something that matters.

She wrote: I only did what I had to do to keep the noise from taking everything from me.

I don’t know if that helps you. It helped me understand that she wasn’t confused. She wasn’t panicked. She was angry.

If you want the letter, I’ll send it. If you never want to hear from me again, I’ll understand.

I’m sorry.

Mark

I read it once.

Then I read it again.

Not because it washed away what happened, but because it was the first time Mark had stopped defending his mother and started naming the truth.

My hands shook as I opened Lily’s baby book.

Inside were photos I hadn’t seen in years. Lily in a tiny pumpkin costume. Lily smearing mashed banana on her cheeks. Lily laughing so hard her eyes squinted.

I pressed my fingers to the page like I could touch her through paper.

Then I cried.

Not the frantic, suffocating sobs of the early months.

A quieter crying. The kind that comes when a piece of stolen memory returns home.

That night, I wrote Mark a single email from an address I’d kept for legal reasons.

Send the letter. Then don’t contact me again.

The reply came within an hour.

Okay. Thank you for reading. I won’t.

Two days later, another package arrived.

Brenda’s prison letter was photocopied, not the original. Mark was still protecting himself from her, even now.

I unfolded the pages and read.

Brenda wrote in her usual way: neat handwriting, careful phrasing, heavy with victimhood.

But in the middle, the sentence Mark had quoted was there.

I only did what I had to do to keep the noise from taking everything from me.

Noise.

That’s what she called a baby’s crying.

Like Lily wasn’t a person.

Like Grace wasn’t a person.

Like they were problems to be solved.

I stared at the sentence until my vision blurred.

Then I did something I didn’t expect.

I laughed once, sharp and humorless.

Because Brenda had finally said the truest thing she’d ever said, and she didn’t even realize she’d confessed to her own soul.

I made a copy of the letter and gave it to Detective Harris, not because it would change Brenda’s sentence—life was life—but because parole boards care about patterns, and words like noise reveal intent better than tears ever could.

Harris looked at the copy, then at me.

“You’re sure you want this in the record?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. “The record is where she hides. Put it there.”

After that, my life returned to the work.

The Lily and Grace Project became real, not just a name Sarah used in an article. Donations came in small amounts. A local business offered free printing for our pamphlets. A lawyer volunteered time to help mothers file protective orders when family members crossed lines. A pediatric nurse from the hospital joined our board.

One day, a young woman came into our office holding her two-year-old on her hip. The child had faint bruises on her arm.

The young woman’s voice shook.

“My mother says it’s discipline,” she whispered.

I swallowed hard, forced my voice to stay gentle.

“Tell me what happened,” I said.

And because of Lily, because of Grace, because of truth, the story didn’t end in a hospital room with a silent monitor.

It ended with a social worker, a restraining order, a safe apartment, and a little girl who got to keep living.

That night, I went to Lily’s grave again. The grass was dry. The sun was low. The air smelled like cut hay and distant rain.

I sat beside her headstone and told her about the little girl.

“I couldn’t save you,” I whispered, voice breaking. “But you saved someone else.”

The wind moved through the trees, soft and steady.

For the first time, my peace wasn’t cold.

It was still sad.

But it wasn’t empty anymore.

I stood up, brushed grass off my jeans, and looked at Lily’s name carved into stone.

“I love you,” I said, simple and final.

Then I walked back to my car, and I drove home.

Not to a house haunted by denial.

Not to a marriage split by a mother’s lies.

To my own life.

To the work.

To a future that didn’t erase the past, but no longer belonged to Brenda.

And that, finally, was the ending Brenda never saw coming.

Part 9

The first time Brenda’s name appeared in my mailbox again, it wasn’t handwritten.

It was official.

State of Ohio, Department of Rehabilitation and Correction.

Notification of Eligibility Review.

I stared at the envelope like it was a snake on my kitchen counter. My hands didn’t shake at first. My body has a strange way of staying steady until the exact moment it can’t anymore.

I opened it.

Brenda Evans, Inmate Number…

Eligible for initial parole consideration in accordance with sentencing guidelines.

Twenty years had sounded like forever when the judge said it. In the courtroom, it had felt like a wall I could finally lean against. A promise that I wouldn’t have to keep checking over my shoulder.

But time is sneaky. Time doesn’t feel like a straight line when you’re grieving. It feels like a loop. It circles back around and drops the same stone in your lap when you least expect it.

I read the letter twice, then a third time, like the words would rearrange into something softer.

They didn’t.

Tasha came over that night. I hadn’t called her, but she had gotten good at reading my silence. She showed up with two iced coffees and the kind of expression you wear when you already know the news is bad.

“You got the parole packet,” she said.

I nodded.

“I hate that they call it eligibility like it’s a birthday,” I said, voice flat.

Tasha sat across from me at my small kitchen table. My apartment had changed over the years. It wasn’t sterile anymore. It had bookshelves, framed photos from the Lily and Grace Project events, a plant I’d somehow kept alive for three years, and a wall calendar with too many notes.

It looked like a life.

The parole letter looked like a hand reaching into it.

“They have to review,” Tasha said gently. “It doesn’t mean she gets out.”

I stared at the paper. “She’ll try.”

“Of course she’ll try,” Tasha replied. “Brenda has never not tried.”

That was the part that still surprised people when they met me now. They assumed the monster would have stopped moving once she hit prison walls.

But Brenda didn’t stop.

She adapted.

I’d heard it through Harris and through Sarah and through the quiet channels that form around any public case. Brenda had filed appeals. Brenda had complained about mistreatment. Brenda had become a “mentor” in a prison Bible study program. Brenda had written letters to local churches about forgiveness and redemption.

She was always building a new stage.

This letter meant she was ready to perform again.

“What do you want to do?” Tasha asked.

I looked up at her. For a moment I didn’t know the answer. Not because I was confused, but because the answer came with weight.

If I ignored it, Brenda could spin that too. She could tell a board, with trembling lips, that I was healed enough not to attend. She could turn my absence into her redemption story.

If I attended, I would have to sit in a room with her again, see her again, hear her voice again, and hold my face steady while she tried to rewrite Lily’s death as a misunderstanding.

I had worked too hard for my peace.

But I had also built the Lily and Grace Project out of a promise: truth stays in the light, even when it hurts.

“I’m going,” I said quietly.

Tasha nodded like she’d expected it.

“Okay,” she said. “Then we prepare the way you always prepare. With facts.”

A week later, Detective Harris met me in his office. He looked older than he had during the second trial, but there was a steadiness to him now I hadn’t seen before, like he had finally learned what monsters can look like and it had rewired something in him.

He slid a folder toward me.

“This is everything the parole board will see,” he said.

I flipped through.

Brenda’s prison behavior record. Her program participation. Her written statement.

When I reached her statement, my stomach turned.

It was exactly what I knew it would be.

She wrote about faith. She wrote about grief. She wrote about “a moment of panic.” She wrote about “an accident” that “spiraled beyond comprehension.” She wrote about “a daughter-in-law’s obsession” and “a community that turned cruel.”

She never wrote Lily’s name.

Not once.

She wrote my name, though. More than once.

Harris watched my face carefully.

“She’s still doing it,” I said, voice low.

“Yep,” he said. “She’s positioning herself as the victim.”

I looked up. “What’s the board like?”

Harris leaned back. “Three members. One former prosecutor. One social worker. One citizen appointee. They’ve seen hundreds of cases.”

“Have they seen her kind of case?” I asked.

Harris was quiet for a moment.

“They’ve seen predators,” he said. “But predators usually don’t show up wearing Grandma.”

I swallowed hard.

He tapped the folder.

“Your impact statement matters,” he continued. “Not because they don’t already know what she did, but because parole boards look for remorse. They look for accountability. And she’s giving them performance.”

I nodded.

“I have something for you,” I said, pulling out my own folder.

Inside were copies of Brenda’s letters from prison, including the line that had become a splinter in my mind for years.

I only did what I had to do to keep the noise from taking everything from me.

Harris read it, then exhaled slowly.

“That,” he said, tapping the sentence, “is intent.”

“I want it in the record,” I said.

Harris nodded. “We’ll submit it.”

As I stood to leave, he hesitated.

“One more thing,” he said.

I turned back.

“Mark contacted us,” Harris said.

My body stiffened.

Harris lifted a hand quickly, not defensive, just informative.

“He’s not trying to change anything,” Harris said. “He asked if he could submit a statement to the board. About what he knows now. About his mother’s pattern.”

I stared at him.

“He wants to help?” I asked, and my voice came out sharper than I meant.

Harris’s expression didn’t change.

“He says he owes Lily,” he said. “He says he owes Grace too.”

I didn’t know what to do with that.

For years, Mark had been the wound that never fully closed. Not because I wanted him back, but because betrayal from someone you loved doesn’t heal cleanly. It leaves jagged edges.

“He can submit,” I said finally. “I don’t want to see him.”

Harris nodded. “That’s your boundary. It stands.”

Two months later, the date arrived.

Parole hearing, Columbus.

The night before, I sat at my kitchen table with my laptop open, typing my victim impact statement. I had rewritten it five times. Each version was too angry or too cold or too much like a speech.

Finally, I stopped trying to make it sound like anything.

I wrote the truth.

My daughter Lily was one year old. She cried because she was a baby. Brenda Evans responded to that crying with violence. She did not panic. She did not lose control. She made a choice. She described my child as noise. She described my child as something to shut up.

Brenda Evans has never taken responsibility. She has never spoken Lily’s name. She has never acknowledged Grace Evans. Her remorse is performance.

If you release her, you are not releasing a rehabilitated person. You are releasing a woman who believes the world owes her comfort and silence, even if it costs someone else their life.

I printed it, then sat in the quiet for a long time, listening to the refrigerator hum and the distant traffic outside.

I didn’t feel fear.

I felt something steadier.

I felt like a door I had welded shut was about to be tested.

And I was ready to stand in front of it.

Part 10

The parole hearing room was smaller than I expected.

No big courtroom. No flags. No jury box. Just a long table, a few chairs, a camera in the corner, and a fluorescent light that made everyone look slightly sick.

Brenda sat on the far side, wearing a plain prison uniform and a soft expression that was meant to read humble. Her hair was grayer now, pulled back neatly. Her hands were folded like she was at church.

When she looked up and saw me, her face shifted.

Not grief.

Not remorse.

Recognition.

Like she was surprised I still existed.

Then the mask slid back into place, smooth as oil.

“Emma,” she said softly, as if saying my name was a kindness.

I didn’t respond.

I sat down at the table behind the board members. Tasha sat beside me, quiet and steady.

The board members introduced themselves. They explained the process. They asked Brenda questions first.

Brenda spoke in a calm, practiced voice.

She talked about her programs. She talked about mentoring other inmates. She talked about faith.

Then the former prosecutor leaned forward and asked, “Do you take responsibility for Lily Evans’ death?”

Brenda’s eyes shimmered instantly with tears.

“I live with that pain every day,” she whispered. “I loved Lily. I loved her more than anything. I would trade places with her if I could.”

The social worker’s voice was gentle but firm.

“That wasn’t the question,” she said. “Do you take responsibility?”

Brenda pressed a hand to her chest, like the words were physically hurting her.

“I made a mistake,” she said. “A terrible mistake. I was overwhelmed. I panicked.”

I felt my fingers curl against my palm.

The citizen appointee, a middle-aged woman with reading glasses, looked down at her notes.

“The coroner testified that the death was the result of prolonged suffocation,” she said. “That is not consistent with panic. That is consistent with an intentional act maintained for a period of time.”

Brenda blinked, and for a moment her mask slipped.

Then she recovered.

“I don’t remember it that way,” she said softly. “I remember trying to help her breathe.”

There it was again.

The shifting story.

Always shifting, always trying to slide away from the center of truth.

The prosecutor member flipped a page.

“Mrs. Evans,” he said, “we have submitted letters you wrote from prison. In one, you state, quote, ‘I only did what I had to do to keep the noise from taking everything from me.’ Who is the ‘noise’ you’re referring to?”

Brenda’s eyes widened slightly.

Her mouth opened.

Then she closed it, like she’d realized she’d walked into a trap.

I watched her carefully. For years I had watched her the way you watch a storm line on the horizon: studying movement, anticipating damage.

Brenda smiled a small, shaky smile.

“I was speaking metaphorically,” she said quickly. “I meant… chaos. The chaos of grief.”

The citizen appointee didn’t look convinced.

“The letter was written years after Lily’s death,” she said. “You weren’t describing chaos in the moment. You were describing your reasoning.”

Brenda’s lips tightened.

The board chair turned to me.

“Ms. Evans,” she said, “you may read your statement.”

I stood. My legs didn’t shake. My hands didn’t tremble.

I looked at Brenda once before I began, not to intimidate her, but to anchor myself in the truth of what I was about to say.

Then I read.

I didn’t raise my voice. I didn’t cry. I didn’t perform.

I said Lily’s name. I said Grace’s name. I said the word noise and I watched Brenda flinch.

When I finished, the room was quiet.

The social worker cleared her throat.

“Thank you,” she said softly, and I could hear the sincerity in it.

Then the prosecutor member said, “We have additional statements submitted to the record.”

He glanced at his folder.

“One from David Evans,” he said. “One from Mark Evans.”

Brenda’s head snapped up at Mark’s name.

For the first time since the hearing began, her eyes looked truly unsettled.

The board chair summarized their statements rather than reading them in full. David confirmed Grace’s death and the similarities in Brenda’s story. Mark confirmed that his mother had manipulated narratives for decades and that he believed she was still doing it now.

Brenda’s face hardened.

“Mark is confused,” she said sharply, forgetting her soft voice for a second. “He’s been poisoned against me.”

The prosecutor member leaned forward.

“Mrs. Evans,” he said, “you just described your son as poisoned for disagreeing with you.”

Brenda blinked.

She tried to recover, tried to soften again.

“I’m saying he’s hurt,” she whispered. “We’re all hurt.”

The citizen appointee folded her hands.

“I’m going to ask you a simple question,” she said. “Can you say Lily’s name and tell us what you did to her?”

Brenda’s throat moved.

Her eyes filled with tears again, but the tears looked different now.

Not grief.

Fear.

She opened her mouth, and for a second I thought she might actually say it. That she might finally speak the truth.

Instead, she whispered, “I loved her.”

The citizen appointee’s face stayed still.

“That is not an answer,” she said.

Brenda’s voice sharpened, bitterness leaking through.

“You all want me to say something I can’t say,” she snapped. “You want me to be a monster so you can feel better.”

The prosecutor member exhaled slowly.

“No,” he said. “We want you to take responsibility. Those are not the same thing.”

Brenda’s eyes darted to me.

And in that moment, her mask dropped fully.

Her expression wasn’t sorrowful anymore.

It was furious.

Like she hated me not because I told the truth, but because I refused to disappear.

The board chair nodded once, like she had seen enough.

“We will deliberate,” she said. “Ms. Evans, you may step outside.”

Tasha squeezed my hand as we walked into the hallway. The corridor smelled like disinfectant and old paint. It felt too much like the hospital.

My lungs tightened.

“You’re okay,” Tasha whispered. “You did it.”

I nodded, but I didn’t speak.

A few minutes later, the board called us back in.

The chair’s voice was steady.

“Brenda Evans,” she said, “parole is denied.”

Brenda stared at her like she didn’t understand the language.

The chair continued, “The panel finds a lack of accountability and a lack of genuine remorse. The panel finds continued minimization of the offense and an ongoing tendency to reframe yourself as the victim. This panel is not convinced you are safe to release.”

Brenda’s face crumpled, not with grief.

With rage.

She looked at me again, eyes sharp.

“This is your fault,” she hissed, and there it was, the nursery voice, leaking through twenty years later like it had never left her. “You ruined everything.”

The guards stepped in, firm hands guiding her up.

Brenda twisted once, trying to hold my gaze as she was led out.

I didn’t look away.

Not because I wanted to win.

Because I wanted her to know one simple thing before the door closed behind her again.

I was not afraid of her anymore.

When she was gone, the room felt oddly normal. Like it could be cleaned and used for another case and another story.

The board chair looked at me.

“I’m sorry for your loss,” she said quietly.

“Thank you,” I replied, and I meant it.

Outside, the sky was clear. Cold. Bright.

I walked to my car with Tasha, my body buzzing with the aftershock of facing Brenda again and not breaking.

In the driver’s seat, I sat for a moment without turning the key.

Tasha waited.

Finally, I said, “She still thinks she’s the center.”

Tasha nodded. “She always will.”

I swallowed.

“But she’s not,” I said, and the words tasted like something clean. “Not anymore.”

That Sunday, I drove to Lily’s grave.

I brought one rose this time, not five.

I placed it at the base of the headstone and sat in the grass, letting the cold sink through my jeans, grounding me.

“It’s done again,” I whispered. “She’s staying where she belongs.”

The wind moved through the trees.

I didn’t feel victory.

I felt finality.

And that, I realized, was the closest thing to peace I’d ever get.

So I took it.

I stood, brushed off my knees, and walked back to my car.

I didn’t look back because I didn’t have to.

Lily was not behind me.

She was inside me.

In every boundary I set.

In every mother I helped trust herself.

In every room where a baby’s cry was treated as a need, not noise.

And Brenda, finally, was just a name on a prison record.

Not a shadow over my life.

Just a fact.

Just a consequence.

Just the ending she earned.

THE END!

Disclaimer: Our stories are inspired by real-life events but are carefully rewritten for entertainment. Any resemblance to actual people or situations is purely coincidental.