I had remarried eight months earlier.
Ryan had been like a godsend when he came into our lives. Patient. Caring. The kind of man who remembered Lily's favorite cereal and quietly fixed things around the house without me asking.
After my first husband died in a work accident, I spent three years surviving. Not truly living.
Ryan was like warmth after a long, cold winter.
When Lily changed after the wedding—quieter, more clingy, with nightmares—I told myself what you always say when you don't want to face a deeper problem:
She's just settling in.
A new house. A new routine. A new father figure.
I repeated it to friends. To the pediatrician when she started wetting the bed again. To my mother when she talked about Lily. She seemed nervous.
At first, she refused baths once or twice a week.
Then it became every night.
Every single night.
As soon as I mentioned bathing, her whole body would stiffen. Her face would turn chalk white. Her hands would shake. Sometimes she would cower in a corner, as if I were trying to endanger her.
One night, I lost my patience.
"Lily, stop. It's just a bath."
As soon as I said those words, she screamed.
Not like a scolded child. More like a child experiencing something terrible.
Her knees buckled and she collapsed to the floor. She was shaking so violently I thought something serious had happened. I collapsed next to her and tried to support her, but she resisted and gasped: