“You okay?” Mitchell asked, settling beside her with Paige balanced on one knee.
Wendy nodded slowly. “I think I just heard the sentence that explains my whole childhood.”
He listened while she repeated it.
Mitchell looked out across the yard for a long moment. “Then get comfortable,” he said at last. “Stay difficult.”
She laughed so hard Paige startled, then laughed too because babies often decide laughter is contagious before they know why.
As the first year of Paige’s life unfolded, the porch morning receded in some ways and sharpened in others. Trauma did not vanish. It integrated. Certain sounds still spiked Wendy’s pulse—the crack of a door opening too hard, the tone of someone saying her name with falsely sweet urgency. But there were also new layers now, protective ones, built from practice and repetition. Therapy. Routine. Love that stayed put even when she was tired or angry or not gracious. The knowledge that she no longer needed anyone’s permission to call harm by its name.