“Dad… do I have to say sorry to Aunt Rebecca?” my five-year-old daughter whispered, tucked between the washing machine and a basket of dirty clothes, a vivid red mark still stamped across her cheek.
Outside, the party went on like nothing had happened.
In the backyard of my parents’ house in Austin, pink balloons bobbed above a table covered with Jell-O cups, pitchers of fruit punch, children running around a bounce house, and a speaker playing kids’ songs way too loudly. It was my niece Sophie’s sixth birthday—my sister Rebecca’s daughter—and from the street, we probably looked like the perfect happy family.
But my daughter, Lily, was gone
At first, I thought she had just gotten overwhelmed. Ever since her mother, Claire, died two years earlier, Lily had been a quiet child. She didn’t like crowds. She covered her ears when people got too loud, and at family gatherings, she usually stayed close to me, gripping my shirt like I was the only safe place she knew.
