My new wife’s seven-year-old daughter burst into tears every time we were left alone together. Whenever I gently asked her what was wrong, she would only shake her head silently. My wife would just laugh it off and say, “She simply doesn’t like you.”

“You already found us once,” I said. “That was your mistake.”

Three months later, I sat on the porch of a small farmhouse outside Boulder.

The Hawthorne Avenue house had been seized and sold for restitution. I didn’t want that museum of fear. I wanted a home where shoes could be left by the door, dishes could wait in the sink, and laughter didn’t need permission.

Harper ran through the yard with a golden retriever we had adopted. Her laughter was loud now. Wild. Free.

She saw Dr. Bennett twice a week. The bruises had faded, replaced by ordinary childhood scrapes from climbing, running, falling, and getting back up.

“Ethan!” she shouted from near the creek. “Scout says there’s a frog!”