I knew something was terribly wrong before I reached the upstairs dressing room, because I could hear my five-year-old daughter sobbing through the hallway.

On the following Saturday, Nora and I returned to Greenwich.

She wore a soft pink wool beanie pulled over her ears to keep the chilly November air away from her head, paired with a matching fleece coat and tiny yellow rain boots. She held my hand tightly as we walked across the wide lawn toward the mansion, but she didn't hide behind my legs anymore.

Parked on the circular driveway was an industrial high-reach excavator, its massive yellow arm resting against the morning sky like a sleeping dinosaur. Beside it stood a crew of eight construction workers wearing hard hats and high-visibility vests.

The site supervisor, an older man with gray hair named Frank, stepped forward and tipped his hard hat to me. "Morning, Mrs. Vance. Everything is cleared out inside. The architectural salvage team took the antique mantels and the mahogany paneling like you asked. The framing in the master dressing room wing is completely isolated. We’re ready whenever you are."

I knelt down beside Nora, adjusting the brim of her pink hat. Her brown hair had already begun to grow back in soft, fuzzy patches beneath the fabric, curling slightly at the nape of her neck. Her skin was clear, the purple bruises on her wrists having faded into faint yellow memories.

"Nora, sweetie," I said, pointing toward the heavy machinery. "Do you remember what we talked about?"

She nodded, her brown eyes bright and serious. "You said the bad room is going to disappear."

"That’s right," I told her, smiling. "We are going to take that room down, every single brick, so it can never scare anyone ever again. Do you want to push the button?"

Frank smiled, pulling a remote electronic signaling box from his pocket. He had wired it to the excavator’s ignition horn so Nora could give the signal to begin. He knelt down and held the yellow box out to her.

"All you have to do is push the big green button, Nora," Frank said gently. "And our big machine will knock the walls right down."

Nora looked at me. I squeezed her hand and gave her an encouraging nod.

She reached out with her small thumb, pressing the green button firmly.

A loud, clear horn sounded across the valley: *BEEP! BEEP!*

The excavator’s diesel engine roared to life, sending a puff of white exhaust into the crisp autumn air. The massive steel grapple rose into the sky, swinging smoothly toward the second-story wing of the mansion where the master dressing room had stood.

With a tremendous, splintering crash, the steel teeth bit into the exterior brick and the decorative crown molding. Plaster, lath, glass, and expensive wallpaper disintegrated in an explosion of dust and rubble. The vanity table where Chloe had held the clippers shattered under the weight of the steel arm. The window frames buckled and collapsed inward.

Nora didn't flinch. She watched with wide, rapt attention as the room that had trapped her was reduced to a pile of broken brick and splintered pine.

When the grapple pulled back, revealing the open blue sky where the ceiling had once been, Nora let out a soft, delighted giggle. She squeezed my hand and looked up at me with a smile that reached all the way to her eyes.

"Mommy," she said, pointing at the open space. "Now the sunshine can get in."