We were not going to get the old normal back.

There was no road to it.

So we built a different one, a slower one, made of small things: seals checked without shame, water poured in plain sight, a nightlight left on, a door left open, a rule stated as often as it took — you are allowed to be awake, you are allowed to say no, you are allowed to be loud. Some nights Mira came and sat on the edge of my bed just to confirm the world still worked the way I’d promised.

I let her confirm it as many times as she needed.

Certainty, for a child who’s been taught not to trust her own senses, is not something you give once.

It’s something you prove, over and over, until she believes it in her body.