I did not ask her because it did not occur to me. Not for a second, not in any form — the thought should I ask Lia did not enter my mind at any point that night or the following morning.

And underneath that, when I dug: because at that moment I was not able to distinguish between what had been done to her and what had been done to me.

I had come home to a house where my mother-in-law had taped an instruction to my child’s bedroom door. I had been standing in that house — Arthur’s house, on Arthur’s property, where the three of us had been living for four years and two months — being told to wash my face and get ready for guests.

And for four years I had said nothing. Not about the comments on my cooking, not about Martha rearranging Lia’s room while we were out, not about the Sunday dinners where I was corrected in front of my own child.

I had been quiet, and polite, and I had told myself it was for the sake of peace, and then a woman put a note on my daughter’s door.

The post was two thousand words. About four hundred of them are about Lia.