One afternoon, she was late picking me up from school. Minutes passed. Then half an hour. Then more. As the schoolyard emptied, terror returned with full force. I was certain they had abandoned me.
When a taxi finally pulled up, Daniel jumped out, pale and sweating. He hugged me immediately.
“It’s okay, sweetheart. Your mom is fine. She cut her hand at work. We’re going to see her now.”
At the clinic, Hannah sat on a bench with her hand bandaged and stained with dried blood. The moment she saw me, she stood and smiled through the pain.
“I’m sorry, baby,” she said. “It was just a silly accident. I didn’t want you to be scared.”
I stared at her. She was the one who was hurt, and still she was comforting me first.
Something broke loose inside me.
I stepped closer, touched the edge of her bandage, and said my first word in years.
“Mom.”
It came out rough, rusty, like an old door opening after years shut.
Hannah stopped breathing.
“What did you say?” she whispered.
Tears streamed down my face. I clung to her blouse and said it again.
“Mom.”
She cried. Daniel cried. I cried. And after that, my voice began to return—a few words at first, then sentences, then questions, then laughter.