I got them into a routine, the boring beautiful scaffolding of an ordinary childhood: school, and bedtimes, and vegetables they complained about, and a standing rule that we read one chapter every night no matter what.

I was not a natural at any of it.

I burned dinners and missed forms and had to learn a hundred things a parent is supposed to already know.

But I showed up, every single day, and showing up, it turns out, is most of it.

Slowly, my quiet house of grief filled up with noise — with arguments over the last waffle, and cartoons too loud on Saturday mornings, and the specific, holy racket of two children who had finally, finally stopped being afraid.

Chapter 14 — The Trial