Some nights I still woke up with the old panic, the feeling that I had forgotten something and would be punished for it in the morning. Some days even a simple request from another adult made my chest tighten, because I heard invisible conditions underneath it.
Healing was less cinematic than leaving.
It was therapy on Tuesdays.
It was learning to say, “That doesn’t work for me,” without explaining for ten minutes.
It was putting money into my own savings account, even when the amount was small.
It was driving my own car with Evan in the back seat and realizing no one could take the keys from my hand without consequences now.
The first time Dad came over after we were fully settled, he stood in the kitchen and looked around at the dishes in the rack, the board books stacked on the coffee table, the laundry basket full of baby socks waiting to be folded.
Nothing in the house was fancy.
Everything in the house was peaceful.
He smiled in that quiet way he had whenever something mattered too much for a bigger reaction. “Looks like home,” he said.
I looked around and realized he was right.