“Mom, it’s just a heating pad.”

I laughed, realizing she’d found a way to reclaim something ordinary from a frightening time.

We put it in the linen closet beside the clean towels.

Not everything from the past needed to be destroyed.

Some things could simply be given a different purpose.

PART 22

One Saturday, almost a year after I drove Sadie to the hospital, she asked whether she could invite her friends over for dinner.

“Nothing fancy,” she warned.