“That’s going to help a lot of kids,” Sky said that night at the small celebration they held in the foundation conference room.
“One case at a time,” Elo said.
When Maya was four, she started preschool. Elo was more nervous than her daughter.
“What if kids are mean to her?” Elo asked Daniel in the parking lot.
“Then we’ll handle it,” he said. “Together.”
“I just want her to be safe,” she said.
“She will be,” he replied. “She has us.”
Maya’s first day went perfectly. She came home with paint on her sleeves and a big smile.
“I painted a rainbow,” Maya said. “And we sang songs. And I have a best friend named Emma.”
“I’m so proud of you,” Elo said.
That year, the foundation celebrated its twentieth anniversary.
“Twenty years,” Elo said at the podium of a large community hall filled with survivors, families, and advocates. “Twenty years ago, I was eight and hurting. Today, I’m twenty-eight, a lawyer, a wife, a mother. And together we’ve helped ten thousand children find safety.”
She looked at Sky in the front row.
“None of this happens without my best friend,” she said. “She saw me when I was invisible. She’s been beside me every step.”
Sky wiped tears from her cheeks.