One evening, as the sun turned the bay to a sheet of warm gold, she leaned her head against my shoulder — her choice, her weight, settling against me for the first time in a year without any flinch in it at all.

I want to be honest about how slow it was, because the stories people tell about rescue usually end at the arrest, as though kicking down the door is the same as healing what was behind it.

It is not.

The night the marshals led my mother and my brother away, Ingrid did not melt into my arms restored.

She was still flinching a month later.

Three months later.