There were no miracles after that, and no shortcuts — only weekly meetings full of long silences and clear boundaries, and the slow work of a man in therapy learning not to read every quiet moment as a door closing.

She let him come to her science fair.

Months later, she let him help raise the seat on her new bike.

And one afternoon, six months in, coasting down a slight incline in the driveway, she lost her balance and scraped her knee, and turned toward the porch and called out, without thinking — “Dad, can you bring the band-aids?”

They both froze.

She had heard the word leave her own mouth, and it startled her as much as it startled him, and for a moment neither of them knew what to do with it.