We drove back to our neighborhood to check on Noah and Lily before going back to sign the final protective order.

My installation partner, Robert Vance, was sitting on our front porch step, keeping an eye on the brick driveway while my sister-in-law stayed inside with the kids.

Out in the shade of the back patio, Lily sat on a clean patch of grass, her small fingers wrapped around her pink fleece blanket and her soft plush rabbit.

She babbled a slurred two-word tune while squeezing the rabbit’s long fleece ears against her cheeks.

Noah pedaled his red bicycle in slow, steady circles around the green backyard inside the tall cedar fence, his scraped knee covered with a clean white bandage from the hospital supply room.