A child who argues has learned that her opinion is allowed to exist.

A child who complains has learned that her discomfort will be heard instead of punished.

A child who laughs too loud has learned that her joy does not need to be small.

A child who changes her mind, and says so, and says it again, has learned that she is a person and not a problem to be managed.

All of that racket that Sondra found so unbearable — the fussing, the questions, the endless bright chaos of Rhys that she’d wanted to correct out of him — all of it was the sound of children who knew, without ever having to think about it, that they were safe.

And the most important noise a child can ever make is the one Mira made at the park with a watch pressed to her mouth: the sound of a child who knows, all the way down, that when something is wrong she has every right to use her voice and call for help.