The Gradual Vanishing
The change did not arrive all at once.
It came in fragments — small enough to excuse, soft enough to rationalize.
She began waking at night. She asked to keep the hallway light on, a habit she had abandoned years earlier. She stopped finishing her lunch. Her notebooks returned home empty, pages untouched where stories once lived.
When I asked about school, she shrugged.
“I’m fine.”
The word sounded rehearsed.
As a judge, I know that silence is rarely accidental. But as a parent, I wanted to believe in phases. Adjustment. Growth. Children adapt, we tell ourselves.
What I did not yet understand was that my daughter was adapting to survive.
