Daniel and I started therapy. The first session was brutal. We both cried almost the entire time.
“I let her get lost,” he told the therapist. “I let our bond break because it was easier to keep the peace at home.”
“And I let it happen,” I admitted, “because I was afraid if I pushed back, they would send me away and I would have nowhere to go.”
The therapist nodded gently.
“Fear makes people tolerate the intolerable. But the fact that you’re both here means the bond is not dead.”
Slowly, it began to rebuild.
Daniel started calling just to ask how I was. What had I eaten? Had I slept? Did my back hurt? Simple questions he had not asked in years.
One day he showed up at Linda’s house with flowers.
“Just because,” he said. “Because you’re my mom.”
I cried over those flowers half the afternoon.
Meanwhile, cohabitation at the house kept teaching lessons. Teresa called me weekly.
“Yesterday Emily got irritated because Miguel used too much hot water,” she said once, laughing. “I politely reminded her we pay rent on time and are entitled to showers.”
Daniel, she told me, was trying. On Saturdays he played soccer in the yard with both boys.
There were softer moments too.