She blinks at me, confused by the shine in my eyes, but she doesn’t pull away. When I get her settled with a coloring sheet, I pull out my phone and type to Samuil with shaking fingers.
She said a word.
He responds almost immediately.
That’s incredible. I knew this was a good idea.
By the time Davýd comes to get her, she’s humming full verses of the songs. When I stop singing, she fills in the word “sun” each time. Her father steps into the living room and freezes.
She doesn’t notice him at first. She’s too busy scooting closer to me so she can see the pictures in the book we’re reading.
When she does notice him, she doesn’t retreat. She doesn’t hide. She doesn’t run behind anything. She simply looks up and says, quiet but clear, “Sun.”
Davýd collapses into a chair like someone pulled the bones out of him. His hands cover his face. I don’t say anything. I don’t move. I just sit with Anya leaning against my side while her father tries to get his breathing under control. When he finally looks at me, tears run down both cheeks.
“Thank you,” he whispers. “You don’t know what you’ve done.”
I swallow hard, my own tears threatening again. “It wasn’t me,” I say. “She was just ready.”
He shakes his head, overcome. “No one has reached her since my wife died. No one.”
He hugs his daughter, crying openly into her hair while she hums the song we practiced. I look away so I don’t intrude on the moment, but it’s impossible not to absorb what it feels like. What healing looks like. What love sounds like.
What a family can be, even when it’s hurting.
19
SAMUIL
The moment I open the door, I hear her voice drifting from the living room. It sounds like she’s talking to herself, reading something aloud in a light, elated rush. I follow the sound before I can think better of it.
She’s sitting on the rug beside the coffee table, flipping through a stack of materials she probably used with Anya today. Her hair is pulled back in a loose braid, and there’s a faint smudge of green marker on the side of her hand. She doesn’t notice me at first, too busy rereading notes she made, probably planning for tomorrow in that careful way of hers.
She looks steady and happy. It’s the least guarded she’s been since she came here. This work means so much to her, and I hate that I had to pull her away from what she was doing in the classroom. Even so, I can’t regret it. She’s making huge strides in Anya’s life. That matters.
When she finally lifts her head and sees me standing there, she smiles at me. It’s the first genuine smile she’s given me in weeks. Maybe she’s too happy to remember that she’s angry with me.
“Hey,” she says gently. “I didn’t hear you come in.”
“You looked really focused,” I say in a low voice. It sounds rougher than I mean for it to, and I instantly regret it. “What happened with Anya today was incredible.”
She smiles even wider. Either she didn’t notice my tone or she wasn’t offended by it. Either way, I’m grateful. She’s looking at me with so much warmth and excitement that it nearly knocks me off my feet. I was starting to think she’d never look at me like that again.
“I know,” she says in awe, tears springing to her eyes. “It was just one word, but it meant everything.”
I sit down on the edge of the coffee table, close enough to feel her warmth, but not close enough to scare her off. She holds herself very still, like she doesn’t trust her own reaction to me.
“No one else got through to her,” I say. “No one. Not the therapists. Not the specialists. Not the people who have known her since the day she was born. But you…” My voice trails off, not because I can’t finish the sentence, but because the words feel too big for the room. “You reached her.”
She looks down at her hands like she’s trying to hide the tears before they fall.
“I didn’t do anything special,” she whispers. “I just used my teacher training. Anyone could have done it.”
I shake my head. “I don’t think so,” I say quietly. “You have no idea the effect you have on people. And if just anyone could have gotten through to Anya, they would have by now. She’s been seeing a therapist for nearly a year. She goes to speech therapy twice a week. She has an army of highly trained nannies. It took you only three weeks to get through to her. That’s magic, Molly.”
The words feel truer than anything I’ve said in a long time.
Her breath catches and one tear spills over. She swipes it quickly, embarrassed, like she isn’t willing to be vulnerable in front of me. I can’t take it anymore. I hate this tension between us. I hate that she’s afraid of me.
