“You did need help,” I said.

“Yes.

But not someone to be in charge of me.

I needed people who would stand beside me until I remembered how to stand on my own.”

She squeezed my hand.

“Thank you for coming home.”

I thought of the moment Wendell ordered me to stay in the kitchen because he didn’t want me embarrassing him.

I thought of the silence when I walked back wearing my uniform, of the little word attention ringing through a room full of strangers.