By Hannah Dreier, The Washington Post, October 24, 2020
Her 11-year-old was on the floor drawing. Her 9-year-old was next to him, playing with plastic robots. It was a rare quiet moment in the house, and Kelli Lewis used it to look around at what she needed to repair. She looked up at the ceiling, where there was a hole and some spreading cracks from a tree that had toppled onto the roof. She looked at the walls, damaged from all the times her 11-year-old, Ahav, had gotten upset and punched them. She looked at Ahav, wondering what she was going to do, and then she saw his suddenly cloudy eyes and understood the quiet moment was about to end.
“What’s going on?” she asked, crossing the living room past Analiel, the 9-year-old, and pressing her forehead against Ahav’s. “Tell me, are you struggling right now?”
Ahav shook his head no, but he was watching the corners of the room, where he sometimes saw shadowy figures. He asked Kelli for a hug and she wrapped her arms around him.
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