I heard my daughter laugh in her room and stopped in the hallway

Dear Delyara, She was on the phone with a friend, laughing properly, the kind of laugh that lifts out of the body without permission. I stood there listening for a second longer than I should have. Not to spy. Just to feel relieved. When children get older, so much of their inner life moves behind doors and into messages and private glances you are no longer invited into. So when joy escapes into the hallway, you take it. I went downstairs lighter than I had been a minute before.