I couldn’t help it. The tears finally came, hot and fast down my face. “Lily,” I sobbed. “Oh, Lily, I’m so sorry.”

Two days later, Mark and I were in his truck, driving west toward Colorado.

We didn’t talk much during the long drive, but the silence felt different this time. It felt like a bridge being built.

We pulled up to a modest apartment building on the outskirts of Denver. When Lily walked out of the front door, she looked small in her oversized sweater. But she was wearing those gold earrings.

She didn’t run, and I didn’t either. We just walked toward each other in the chilly afternoon air and held on tight. Nobody said anything for a second, and honestly, that silence was the best thing I’d felt in years.

That was 6 months ago. Lily moved back to Indiana last month. We rented a small apartment for her just three blocks from our house, and Mark spent last weekend assembling a crib in her spare room.

Yesterday, we sat at our kitchen table, going through baby clothes. Lily was laughing at a ridiculous tiny pair of boots Mark had bought. She looked healthy, her cheeks were full, and she looked like my daughter again.

I still feel a pang of guilt when I think about those 3 years of silence. But then I look at my husband, who is currently in the living room trying to figure out how to install a car seat in the back of his truck. He is terrible at reading instructions, but he is trying. And that is more than enough.