She had learned to swallow her own pain to protect Aurora from what came after.

And so she stood at that sink in total silence, a five-year-old with the composure of a hostage, and it was that silence, more than the redness of her hands or the state of the kitchen, that told me exactly how long this had been going on and exactly how badly I had failed to see it.

A crying child is a child who still expects to be comforted.

My daughter had stopped expecting it.

That is a thing you have to work to do to a child, and my mother had done it under my roof while I told myself all was well.

Chapter 6 — Yes, Right Away