A few days later, I found her sitting on the bathroom floor, back against the cabinet, forehead resting on her knees. When I touched her shoulder, she flinched like a startled animal.

That was when I stopped asking.

The next morning, I told Richard I was taking Maya out to buy school supplies. He barely looked up. “Don’t spend too much,” he muttered, already irritated.

I drove straight to the hospital.

In the waiting room, Maya kept apologizing. “Dad’s going to be angry,” she said, as if his temper mattered more than her pain. That realization felt like its own kind of failure.

“Your body isn’t lying,” I told her. “And you never have to earn care.”