But I could see that she was beginning to trust herself again.
She was drawing. She was talking to friends. She had started thinking about college and the possibility of studying architecture.
She was making plans that belonged to her.
That was the victory I cared about most.
On Sofia’s seventeenth birthday, I asked her what kind of cake she wanted.
She chose chocolate with strawberries.
“Do you want to invite friends?” I asked.
She smiled.
“Yes. But just a few.”
We decorated the living room together. She chose the music, wrote the names on the invitations, and placed the cake in the center of the dining table.
At six in the evening, her friends arrived.
They brought gifts, laughed over old school stories, and took photographs. Nobody told Sofia to disappear into another room. Nobody ordered her to clean while the others celebrated.
When it was time to light the candles, I stood beside her.
