Later, as I lay in bed, the remnants of the day played over in my mind. The pain of losing the trophy was still there, but it was overshadowed by the possibility of something new—a mending of the silence that had kept us apart for too long.

I knew we had a long way to go, but for the first time in a while, I felt like we might actually make it through. And that was a victory worth more than any trophy.