Sunday evening, I picked Sophie up. She was cheerful, chattering about cookies and board games and how Grandma let her stay up late watching cartoons. Everything felt normal.
That night, after we got home, Sophie disappeared into her room while I folded laundry in the hallway. I could hear her moving things around, talking to herself the way kids do when they’re playing. Then, very casually, almost like she was thinking out loud, I heard her say: “What should I give my brother when I go back to Grandma’s?”
My hands froze mid-fold. I walked to her doorway. Sophie was sitting on the floor, surrounded by toys, sorting them into piles. “Sweetheart, what did you just say?”
She looked up, her eyes going wide. “Nothing, Mommy.”
“Sophie, I heard something. Can you repeat it, baby?”
She bit her lip and looked back down at her toys. “I wasn’t supposed to say that.”
My heart started pounding. “Say what?”
“My brother lives at Grandma’s, but it’s a secret.”
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