But standing in my mother’s reclaimed house, I understood the difference between the two, and it nearly undid me.

That earlier silence had been the sound of everything I was working toward being far away.

This silence was the sound of it being, at last, right here, safe, mine to protect.

I had crossed the world and back for this exact quiet, and now that I was standing in it, I finally let myself feel how tired I had been, and how long, and how far I had come to be able to stand in a clean room and call my mother and say the word home.

Chapter 23 — Bringing Her Home