She returned to them slowly, first for fifteen minutes at a time, then longer.

Sometimes she drew Liam’s hands or the curve of his ear.

Sometimes she drew nothing, simply sitting with a cup of tea and thinking.

I started keeping my work calls out of that room.

The apartment began to feel like a home instead of a temporary hiding place.

One Sunday Maya handed me a drawing of Liam asleep against my shoulder.

Beneath it she had written, “You were here.”
My throat tightened.