"No, no, no, please..."
"Lily!" I cried. "Talk to me!"
She pressed her face into the carpet and sobbed so hard she could barely breathe.
Then she whispered something so quietly I almost didn't hear it.
"Please don't make me go in there..."
My stomach tightened.
"In where, sweetheart?"
Her entire body trembled.
"The bathroom when Ryan is home."
For a moment, the room became perfectly silent.
The ticking clock on the wall seemed impossibly loud.
The hum of the refrigerator.
The distant sound of the television downstairs.
Everything suddenly felt wrong.
I stared at my daughter.
Six years old.
Terrified.
Shaking.
Looking at me as though she expected me not to believe her.
And God help me, I almost didn't.
Not because I didn't trust Lily.
Because I trusted Ryan.
Or at least I thought I did.
Ryan had never raised his voice around me.
Never hit anyone.
Never seemed cruel.
He volunteered at church events.
He remembered birthdays.
He brought flowers home for no reason.
He was the man everyone described as dependable.
The kind of man women wished they had married.
Yet something about the fear in Lily's eyes made every excuse feel hollow.
I gently lifted her into my lap.
"What happens in the bathroom, baby?"
She immediately shook her head.
"No."
"You can tell Mommy."
"No."
Her voice cracked.
"He said bad things happen when children tell."
My blood turned to ice.
"Who said that?"
She wouldn't answer.
She only cried harder.