I sat down beside them in the shade of the oak, and I pulled Maya into the crook of my arm, and I thought: the water gave up its secrets, and the worst of them turned out to be only money, and the man is gone, and the two people I drove across the city to find are here, in the sun, safe.

My daughter was home.

She was finally, completely home.

I watched Maya dip her brush and touch it to the paper, painting the oak tree we were sitting under, getting the green not quite right and not caring, her tongue poked out in concentration the way it had been since she was three.

I watched Elena lean over and say something that made our daughter laugh — the real laugh, the whole one, the one I had gone three days without and had been afraid I might never hear again.

And I understood that this, this ordinary golden afternoon, was the thing all of it had been for.