For 11 months, I lived inside that sentence.
“My daughter is gone.”
My daughter is gone.
The police searched the school, the woods, and the river. Weeks later, they said Livia had contacted them, was safe, and as an adult, didn’t have to share her location.
After that night, my son changed.
He stopped laughing. He locked his bedroom door whenever he was inside. If I knocked, he answered through the wood.
“Please, Mom. Just don’t come in.”
After that night, my son changed.
I thought it was grief.
So I respected it.
Around Christmas, John tried to say what I refused to hear.
“Camila, she was 18.”
I looked up from Livia’s empty stocking. “Don’t.”
“Maybe she left.”
“She wouldn’t do that to me.”
John looked tired. “Maybe that sentence is part of the problem.”
“She wouldn’t do that to me.”
***
By August, Liam had left for college, leaving the dress hidden where he thought it was safest. At his car, I tried to hug him.
