And that night, for the first time since the morning I hit that kitchen floor, I slept all the way through until dawn without once waking to the sound of a scream that wasn’t there.

My body had been keeping watch for six months, braced, listening, certain the danger could still return.

That night, some deep part of me finally understood that it was over, and let me rest.

I did not know, until it stopped, how tired the vigilance had made me.

I slept eleven hours.

Mira slept beside me.

No one on earth could reach us.

That sleep taught me something about what had actually been happening to my body for the eight months between the kitchen and the verdict, something I had not let myself feel while I was still inside it.