Sofia adopted a golden retriever, whom she named Copper, and the two of them became inseparable.

I noticed, in those first months, small signs of the healing that was underway, and I treasured each one.

Sofia began sleeping with her lamp off again; the stuffed rabbit, retrieved from its high shelf that very first night, returned to its rightful place on her pillow, and she stopped flinching when adults raised their voices in the ordinary way that adults sometimes do.

Valeria stopped positioning herself between her sister and every entering adult, the reflex of a bodyguard slowly unlearning its vigilance, until one day I realized she had simply become a nine-year-old again, absorbed in her stories, unguarded, safe.