“Yeah.” My voice came out rough. “Yeah, of course.”
She grabbed the grain scoop and headed for the stall, already moving on; the conversation closed as far as she was concerned.
I stood there watching her, realizing I’d been carrying weight she’d never asked me to carry.
Mia had seen monsters before. Real ones. And she knew the difference between violence that hurt and violence that protected.
She wasn’t scared of me.
She had never been.
I had.
The week unfolded in small moments of healing.
Riley's shoulder was getting better. The stitches came out on day four, and by day five, she was insisting on helping with morning chores despite my protests. I caught her wincing when she thought I wasn't looking, but I knew better than to say anything. Stubborn was her default setting. I'd learned to work around it.
Mia went back to school on Monday. I drove her myself, walked her to the door, waited until she waved from inside before I let myself leave. When she came home that afternoon,she had stories. Sofia had saved her a seat at lunch. They were partners on a science project about ecosystems. A boy named Tyler had tried to copy her math homework and she'd told him no.
Normal things. Ordinary, unremarkable, precious things.
Dinners became my favorite part of the day again. The three of us were around the kitchen table, passing dishes, talking over each other.
One evening, Mia challenged us to a card game. Some complicated thing she'd learned from a friend, with rules that seemed to change depending on who was winning. She beat us both, badly, and gloated about it for the rest of the night.
"You're both terrible at this," she announced, gathering her winnings of pretzel sticks. "Like, embarrassingly bad."
Mia narrowed her eyes, stacking the pretzel sticks into a smug little pile. “You absolutely did not. You triedsohard. I could see you concentrating.”
Riley leaned back in her chair, arms crossing, mouth tilting just enough to suggest a smile if you knew where to look. “I was concentrating on letting you win.”
Mia snorted, flicking a pretzel at her. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
They went back and forth like that, sharp and easy, the kind of bickering that didn’t cut because no one was trying to win. I sat there watching them, the table cluttered with cards and salt and crumbs, a slow warmth spreading through my chest.
This was what we’d almost lost. Not something dramatic. Not something cinematic. Just this—pretzels and card games and arguments about nothing.
I’d never been more grateful for something so unremarkable.
Later, doing dishes with Riley while Mia finished homework at the table, I heard something I hadn’t heard in weeks.
Riley was humming again. That soft, unconscious sound she made when she was content, when the tension finally loosened its grip on her, when happiness slipped out of her without asking permission.
It hit me harder than any big gesture could have.
I kept my head down, drying plates, listening to the rise and fall of that familiar tune, the scrape of pencil on paper behind us, the clink of dishes in the sink. Ordinary sounds. Sacred ones.
And standing there, hands wet, chest full, I let myself believe, carefully and quietly, that we were going to be okay.
On Thursday night, Mia made an announcement.
“I want to try sleeping alone in my own room tonight.”
Riley looked up from her book. “You sure?”
Mia nodded, but I caught the slight waver in her expression. The bravery she was wearing. The fear underneath.
I leaned against the doorframe, gave her a second to breathe before stepping in.
