The trial would take longer.

But the rescue, the thing that actually mattered, was already complete, on a stretcher, in a sunlit kitchen, as my mother was lifted at last out of the dark.

Chapter 21 — The Trial

Three months later, the damp chill of that June had given way to the warm, golden light of an early Pacific Northwest spring, and the old wooden house in Seattle had been completely transformed.

The heavy, suffocating atmosphere I had walked into that night, the stale air and the smell of the pills, was gone entirely, aired out and cleaned and healed, replaced by the crisp scent of fresh lavender, and lemon oil, and freshly brewed coffee.