Little by little, she was reclaiming her space and her confidence. I watched her laugh at something on her phone one afternoon and realized I hadn’t heard her laugh like that in months. The sound made my chest feel tight in a good way. We still had hard days where she’d go quiet and withdrawn where I could tell she was thinking about everything that happened.
But the good days were starting to outnumber the bad ones. She talked more at dinner, telling me stories about her teachers and her friends without that underlying anxiety that someone was going to tell her to be quiet. She asked if she could redecorate her room, and we spent a Saturday at the home improvement store picking out new paint colors and bedding.
She chose a light blue for the walls and white furniture to replace the dark wood set she’d had since middle school. We painted together over a long weekend, covering droploths and taping off trim and getting more paint on ourselves than on the walls. Lily put on a playlist and we sang along badly while we worked.