The call came while I was folding laundry that smelled like cheap detergent and too many second chances.
I remember that detail clearly—because when your life splits into a before and after, your mind clings to the smallest, strangest things. One of Lily’s socks was inside out. A stain of spaghetti sauce marked one of my shirts. My phone buzzed across the couch with an unknown number, and something inside me tightened before I even answered.
The moment I heard Lily whisper, I knew something was wrong. Not the kind of “wrong” that comes with scraped knees or bedtime arguments. Her voice was too careful—children only sound like that when they’re scared someone might hear them.
She told me she was locked in the bathroom at her grandmother’s house. She told me not to be angry. And then she said the sentence that made everything tilt: her grandmother had burned her hands for taking bread.
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