“Mommy. Look.” She held up a small foil-wrapped chocolate bunny from inside the pink egg, her eyes enormous with the importance of what she had found. “The big one.”
I set my glass on the railing and picked her up. She was solid and warm and wriggling, already trying to get down so she could continue the hunt, but she allowed me a moment of holding her, her chin on my shoulder, her small hand patting the back of my neck with the absentminded affection of a child who had never had any reason to think that the arms holding her might not always be there.
I put my face against her hair, and the yard was loud and bright and full, and the lights were strung between the trees waiting for evening, and somewhere across town in a federal facility, a man was serving his sentence and would be for a long time yet.
I set Maya down, and she was gone immediately, back across the grass at full speed, yellow dress disappearing around the side of the flower bed. I watched her go, and then I picked up my sparkling water and turned my face toward the afternoon sun, unhurried, entirely at home in every sense of the phrase.
The house behind me was quiet. The yard in front of me was not. I knew which one I was choosing, and I walked toward the noise without looking back.
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