I cried like someone was finally pulling all the snow from my bones. I cried for the girl in the junkyard, for the child who had lived in fear, for the one who had spent a whole week waiting to be sent away.
They were not going to send me back.
I was theirs.
After that came the hardest part: learning how to live without waiting for pain.
My hand healed, though the fingers stayed slightly twisted by scar tissue. I gained weight. My hair stopped falling out. But my voice remained hidden for a long time. The doctors said not to force it. Speech would return when fear understood it no longer belonged in me.
When I started school months later, I still barely spoke, but I drew constantly. While other children painted houses or trees, I drew huge tables covered in food—soup, bread, rice, bowls overflowing with warmth—and always, in the center, a family of three.
“You paint what you missed the most,” my art teacher said.
She was right.
Little by little, I smiled more. Slept better. Held Hannah’s hand in public. Still, fear never disappears all at once.