“Then we have nothing left to talk about,” I said, and I hung up, and I blocked his number, and I went to sit down beside my daughter.

Healing did not come in a straight line.

There were days Maya felt guilty, and days she missed the good memories of her father and hated herself for missing them, and her therapist taught her, patiently, that you can love someone and still know that they are not safe for you to be near.

We built new, small, ordinary routines — the farmers market on Saturdays, cheerful arguments over which cereal to buy, a bag of fresh pastries carried home.

One afternoon she found her old backpack at the back of her closet, the one from that night, with the shoulder strap still torn.

“Should I throw it out?” I asked.