Chapter 9
Recovery was slow.
Mia stopped screaming at cabinet doors after eight months.
She stopped asking if I was going to work and never coming back after a year.
She still slept with the teddy bear camera, though the camera no longer worked.
Rachel removed it.
Sewed the eye shut.
Turned it back into only a bear.
Mia named him Guard.
Every morning, she placed Guard on her bed and said, “Watch nice.”
Not watch me.
Watch nice.
I went to therapy too.
At first, I hated it.
I wanted punishment to be enough.
It wasn’t.
Justice gave us distance.
Therapy taught us how to live inside that distance without fear filling every corner.
My therapist asked what I blamed myself for.
I laughed.
The list was endless.
Marrying Karen.
Working late.
Missing signs.
Laughing when Mia mentioned monsters in cabinets.
Trusting smiles.
Trusting peace.
The therapist said, “Guilt can guide repair. It cannot become your home.”
I wrote that down.
Rachel stayed close.
She became Mia’s emergency person.
Then her favorite person.
Then the woman Mia called “Auntie Loud” because Rachel yelled at soccer games, traffic, and bad pancakes.
One evening, Mia climbed onto my lap with a picture she drew.
Three people.
Me.
Her.
Rachel.
A yellow house.
No cabinets.
“Family,” she said.
I cried.
She rolled her eyes like a teenager in a toddler body.
“Daddy always wet eyes.”
I laughed so hard I scared her.
May you like
Then she laughed too.
That sound became the proof I lived for.
