“Mommy?”
Her voice was small. Not sleepy-small, not shy-small. Frightened.
I set the knife down and looked at her properly.
Ava was four years old, with honey-brown curls that never stayed tied back for more than ten minutes and the kind of solemn gray eyes that made strangers tell me she looked like she understood more than most adults. Right then those eyes were wide and glossy, fixed on my face like she was about to confess to something terrible.
“What is it, baby?”
She twisted the hem of her pink pajama shirt in both hands. It was almost five in the afternoon. She should have been asking for crackers, or cartoons, or whether she could put too much cheese on the noodles. Instead she leaned close and whispered, as if the walls themselves were listening.
“Can I stop taking the pills Grandma gives me every single day?”
