The Kids I Babysit Have a Secret Danger Code and They Used It When Their Grandpa Arrived

A year after the trial, I graduated and moved across the country for a job. The goodbye with Owen and Lily was harder than I expected.

These kids had taught me things about resilience and courage that I’d carry forever. Natalie gave me a photo of the three of us at Lily’s 7th birthday party, all of us smiling like we didn’t have a care in the world.

On the back she’d written:

“Thank you for being our lighthouse.”

I cried on the plane ride across the country, not because I was sad exactly, but because some experiences change you permanently and you can’t go back to who you were before. I’d learned that normal looking people could be dangerous, that love and fear could exist in the same relationship, that sometimes protecting someone meant testifying against their family member in court.

Those weren’t lessons I’d wanted to learn at 22, but they’d made me stronger and more aware. This was just one of many wild stories.