The Chair by the Window — The Night Nobody Helped Me

Nobody promised that I would feel normal in a week.

I was grateful for the honesty.

Then Lena handed me a small drawing folded into fourths.

It showed two stick figures holding hands under a yellow sun.

A rabbit stood between them.

Across the top, in the uneven letters of a child learning to write, was MOMMY COME HOME.

The sight of it overwhelmed me more than the medical explanation had.

“Piper made that this morning,” Lena said.