Tom tried talking to her, too. “Em, sweetie, you know you can tell Daddy anything, right?” he coaxed, crouching down to her eye level. Emily just nodded, her lips pressed tightly together. She clutched the little stuffed puppy Brian had given her like it was the only thing holding her together.
I tried to brush it off as a phase, or maybe a delayed reaction to a bad dream. But a mother knows when something’s really wrong.
By the third day, I knew it wasn’t just a phase. My heart ached as I watched my little girl, once so full of life, withdraw into herself. She wouldn’t go to the park. She didn’t want to color or play. When she spoke, it was short, single words—“yes,” “no,” “fine”—like she was afraid to say anything more.
Tom and I began to worry something terrible had happened. We took her to the pediatrician, who ran every test, checked her hearing, even her vision. Everything was normal. Then we went to a child therapist, but after several sessions, the therapist pulled us aside and told us they couldn’t figure out why Emily had retreated into silence.
Weeks turned into months, and Emily still hadn’t returned to her old self. She went through the motions but never spoke more than she had to. Tom and I tried every gentle way we knew to get her to open up, but it was like she’d locked herself in a place we couldn’t reach. Our lives felt wrapped in a strange, unspoken grief.
Read more on the next page ⬇️⬇️⬇️
