My dad ate dinner with us every night for three years and never noticed my plate was always empty. My mother only wanted to control one of her children.

Years Later

I’m twenty-eight now. I eat dinner with my husband every night.

Sometimes I still flinch when someone asks, “Aren’t you hungry?”

But I remind myself — hunger isn’t shame.
It’s human.

My father and I have rebuilt what we lost. He still cries when he remembers those years.

“I should have seen it,” he says.
And maybe he should have.
But monsters like her don’t roar — they whisper.