Six months later, the morning sun streamed through the wide windows of my new home, and the kitchen smelled of fresh waffles and warm syrup, and my daughter sat in her high chair happily smashing a strawberry onto her plate with a plastic spoon.

I want to describe her carefully, because she is the whole point, and because the change in her is the only measure of any of this that matters to me.

The red mark on her cheek had long since faded.

But more than that — the thing I watched for, in those months, with a hawk’s attention — the fear had faded too.

Fiona in that new kitchen was a different child from the little girl who had whispered Grandma mad in a parking lot.