She wiped her face.
“I told Dad when he called me. He said I could come to his place for a few hours, but I didn’t want to go home because I knew you’d ask why I wasn’t at school.”
Mark lowered his head.
“She called me that morning,” he explained. “She was crying so hard I could barely understand her.”
Emily continued.
“Then Dad said I could spend the morning with him while we figured out what to do. The next day, I asked him to pick me up again. And then I kept asking.”
She looked ashamed.
“I know I shouldn’t have lied. I just couldn’t make myself walk through those doors.”
The anger inside me shifted into something much more painful.
My daughter had been physically sick with fear.
Every morning, she had dressed herself, packed her bag, and walked out of our house pretending she was going to school.
