Three years of being taught she had no power, undone in the space of one walk across a dining room.

Whatever else that terrible Christmas cost us, it gave my daughter that walk, and I would not trade the sight of it for anything in the world.

Chapter 23 — She Walks Across the Room

She walked the length of that long dining room slowly and steadily, the small red box held in both hands in front of her, past every aunt and uncle and cousin, and not one of them moved to stop her or spoke to break the silence.

I have replayed that walk in my mind a thousand times since.