I waved too. My hand was still trembling, and the smell of the chlorine was still making my stomach uneasy, but I didn’t pull away.

We sat together on that cold metal bleacher for the next forty-five minutes.

We didn’t talk about the past, and we didn’t make any grand promises about the future. It was just a Saturday morning. But when the lesson was over, Julie turned to me and asked if I wanted to go get some pancakes with them at the diner down the street.

I looked down at the Walmart bag in my lap, and then at my daughter’s face. The wall wasn’t completely gone, but for the first time, we were both standing on the same side of it.

“I’d love that,” I said.