Chapter 10 - The Homecoming
Saturday evening, Wren was discharged from St. Jude’s Memorial Hospital.
She was quiet, pale, and still a little shaken by the hospital monitors, but her spirit was intact. As we walked through the front door of our quiet, safe, peanut-free apartment, she immediately dropped her small backpack on the entryway floor and looked up at me with big, trusting eyes.
"Mommy, are we ever going back to Grandma's house?"
I knelt down, pulling her into my arms and burying my face in her soft curls. A wave of fierce, unbreakable protectiveness surged through me.
"Never, baby," I whispered firmly against her hair. "You never have to go back there again. From now on, it's just you and me. And nobody—do you hear me? Nobody—will ever hurt you again."
She nodded, wrapping her small arms tightly around my neck.
That night, she slept soundly in her own bed, her breathing deep, regular, and unobstructed. I sat in the armchair beside her bedroom door, nursing a cup of chamomile tea, watching the moonlight filter through the blinds.
May you like
My phone remained silent all Saturday. No texts from Mom demanding to know why I left early. No smug messages from Kyle. They were probably assuming I was too cowed, too intimidated, or too exhausted to fight back. They thought they had won their little Thanksgiving experiment and life would simply return to their toxic normal.
They had no idea what was marching toward them.
