It’s session six, and Avigail smiles when I collect her from her classroom. It’s tiny, fleeting, but giant, too. She tries out the art materials, begins to talk, then shuts down. I follow her lead. In and out, in and out. It’s unpredictable, an improv act, and Avigail’s heart is on the line. I keep waiting.

Sessions seven, ten, and 13 pass. Slowly, a story emerges in Avigail’s play. Of being hurt, again and again. Of not wanting to trust anyone. Of being let down by everyone she needs the most. I measure my words like gold, careful not to send her hurtling back to the prickles again.

I’m not sure exactly when it happens, but as spring morphs into summer, things change. Avigail’s shoulders drop, her face relaxes. She starts to play with me, to sit nearer, to check I’m watching her, waving goodbye as she gets back to her classroom. She makes eye contact — with me, with her teachers and classmates. We play together and chat, and sometimes the room reverberates with an infectious giggle, surprising us both. I still tread carefully, but there is a trust growing here. I’m grateful, hopeful, waiting to see what comes next.

What comes next is an email from Avigail’s father; brusque and sharp. She’s too angry at home and bullying her sisters. We’re taking her to an anger-management specialist. He doesn’t want to discuss it, he says, and wants us to end therapy next week.

Next week?! My brain goes into overdrive. I can’t do this to her, be yet another adult who leaves her in the lurch at her most vulnerable. I need to at least give her a proper ending.

I compose five emails before replying. I respect that he wants the therapy to end, I write, but please can we have four sessions to end the process therapeutically? Thankfully, he agrees. Four sessions to go.

The next three sessions are painful. I sit with Avigail’s frustration and sadness, though she goes back to shutting me down when I mention the looming ending. Still, she’s softer, more open. Our silences are shared rather than spiky.

One session to go.

She doesn’t turn up to her last session and I get it, I really do. It’s easier for her to reject me before I reject her, but I send her a letter and wait, saying I’d promised her four sessions and we can have the fourth next week. I half wonder if she’ll reappear.

She does.

She comes in and lies down on the floor, looking up at me, right in the eye. Gently, I reflect the sadness I see and feel, waiting for the inevitable pushback. Instead, I get a nod.

“Can I stay one extra minute today?” she asks.

I nod, wordless.

We speak about nothing and everything that session, while Avigail still lies, squashing some putty, looking up at me. The clock ticks, two minutes to go, and in a rush, it all comes out. She thanks me for the letter I sent her: “It was really nice, what you wrote, thank you for making my life better,” and as she leaves, this big-little girl, she shyly hands me a miniscule folded note.

I take her back to her classroom, then return to the note, unfolding and unfolding. When I get to the middle, it’s filled with fewer than few words, and a hundred little hearts.

(Originally featured in Family First, Issue 925)