We missed too much.

Nora survived too much.

Healing doesn’t erase any of that.

But last week, she called me after class.

She was laughing.

“Mom, I think I completely failed this quiz.”

I laughed too.

“Then congratulations. You’re experiencing normal student life.”

She went quiet for a second.

Then she said,

“I like normal.”

So do I.

For eight years, I thought finding Nora would mean bringing her home.

Now I understand I was wrong.

She already has a home.

What we are building is something different.

A path back to each other.

And for the first time in eight years, I no longer have to wonder whether my daughter is alive.

I know where she is.

I know she’s safe.

And most importantly, she is finally beginning to understand that one mistake she made at sixteen never meant she deserved everything that happened afterward.