The quietude of the San Jose suburbs is a specific kind of silence. It is expensive, manicured, and designed to imply safety. For years, I lived within that silence like it was a fortress. My husband, Daniel, a veteran of grueling double shifts at the hospital, and I had built a life for our eight-year-old daughter, Emily, that was defined by order and independence. We didn’t just want her to be comfortable; we wanted her to be resilient.
That was the logic behind “The Rule.” From the time she was a toddler, Emily slept in her own room—a sanctuary of high-end domesticity. I had spared no expense on the mattress, a two-meter-wide premium slab of memory foam that cost more…
