MY HUSBAND SHOOK ME AWAKE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT—“GET UP, BACKYARD, NOW!”

institutional shorthand.

I didn’t read them closely, choosing instead to focus on the quiet victories of uneventful days and unbroken sleep.

Healing, I discovered, is not dramatic, but cumulative, built from mornings without dread and evenings without rehearsed escape plans.

The children grew taller, louder, surer, their laughter slowly overwriting the continue reading …