I just kept the pantry full and let her see me keep it full, day after day, until the hiding slowly stopped.

And Mason — Mason would not eat his own dinner until Daisy had finished every bite of hers, watching her plate like a sentry, unable to relax into his own childhood because he had spent three years being the only thing standing between his sister and hunger.

Every night I sat on their floor and read to them, adventures and dragons and heroes, and every night Mason listened with one ear and kept the other on his sister, and I understood that teaching him to put that duty down was going to be the hardest and most important thing I ever did.

The sleeping bag in the hallway became a nightly ritual, and I came to understand it as something more than comfort — it was a message I was delivering in the only language that would reach them.