Chapter 13 - Two Children Learning Safety
Tommy entered a therapeutic foster home after leaving the hospital.
He could not immediately live with Diane or Nathan.
He needed specialized care.
But he asked to see Ava.
Their first visit took place in a bright room with no locks on the outside.
Tommy sat near the door.
Ava understood.
She did not ask him to move.
They played a card game.
For twenty minutes, neither discussed Wade.
Then Tommy asked, “Are you still mad at me?”
Ava looked up.
“Why would I be?”
“You got hurt because I knocked.”
“No. I got hurt because Wade grabbed me.”
Tommy nodded slowly.
“My mom got hurt because of me.”
Ava placed her cards down.
“That’s what Wade told you.”
Tommy’s eyes filled.
“Do you think it’s true?”
“No.”
She spoke with certainty she did not always feel for herself.
“Adults make choices. Kids don’t cause adults to hurt people.”
The therapist watched silently.
Ava was repeating what Nathan had taught her.
Sometimes healing began when one child told another the truth neither could yet fully believe alone.
Diane attended parenting therapy and trauma education.
She wrote Ava letters but did not pressure her to return home.
In the first letter, she apologized.
In the second, she explained the changes she was making.
In the third, she asked no questions.
Ava eventually agreed to weekly visits.
They were awkward.
Painful.
Real.
Diane never asked Ava to forgive Wade for “making a mistake.”
She called what happened abuse.
She never said Franklin had been “caught in the middle.”
She called his silence a choice.
Slowly, Ava began trusting that her mother no longer needed comforting more than she needed truth.
Nathan requested expanded custody.
The court granted it.
Ava moved into his townhouse near the military base.
There were rules.
Curfews.
Therapy appointments.
But no one called questions disrespectful.
No one locked doors from the outside.
Six months later, Tommy’s relatives were reviewed.
Rachel’s younger sister, Megan, was located in Oregon.
Wade had told her Tommy wanted no contact.
That was another lie.
Megan flew to Virginia immediately.
When Tommy met her, she brought a box of photographs of Rachel.
In every picture, Rachel was holding him.
May you like
Smiling.
Choosing him.
