She was loud.

She was messy, gloriously and unselfconsciously messy, smashing strawberries and spilling juice without the smallest flicker of the wariness she used to carry at family gatherings, the rigid little watchfulness of a child bracing for a grandmother’s criticism.

Her eyes were bright and clear and completely free of fear.

She had, in six months, unlearned the thing Wendy had spent her short life teaching her — that she was being watched, judged, found wanting, at risk.

She had learned, instead, the thing every child deserves to know from the beginning: that her home was safe, that the adults in it were on her side, that she could be a loud and messy and imperfect two-year-old and be met with nothing but love.