“Safe.” Esme poured herself a glass of orange juice, took a sip, and grinned up at us.

“Can we go to the beach after camp?” I looked at my husband, and then at my daughter — the brave, watchful eight-year-old whose whisper in my ear had saved my life and broken ten years of lies open in a single sentence.

“We can go wherever you want,” I said, and lifted my own cup of tea, made with my own hands from mint I’d grown in our own garden, up into the clean morning light.

“The whole world is wide open.” And I took a slow, unafraid sip, and there was nothing in it but mint and warmth and the ordinary, miraculous taste of a life I had gotten to keep.

For a long time after, I could not drink tea that someone else had made.

Thandeka understood; she never once handed me a cup without watching my face and giving me the moment I needed to steady myself.