Page 39 of The Weight of Her Silence
Ava stepped inside. Her arms were crossed. Her eyes searched the room, then her mother.
“Why are you sleeping alone so much lately?”
Lila’s heart skipped.
She sat down on the edge of the bed and patted the spot beside her.
“I’m just tired. Sometimes I need the rest.”
Ava didn’t sit.
“You’re not just tired.”
“I am.”
“Then why do you cry in the bathroom?”
The room went still.
Lila looked up at her daughter. Her beautiful, sharp, brave girl. Ava, fourteen going on thirty. The child who heard more than she should.
“I’m not crying,” Lila said quietly.
“Sometimes… it’s just hard to breathe.”
Ava’s face crumpled, just slightly.
“Are you sick?”
Lila’s throat tightened.
“Not in a way you need to worry about.”
“That’s not an answer.”
Lila reached for her, and this time, Ava let herself be pulled in. She sat on the bed, head resting on her mother’s shoulder, stiff at first, then melting into the softness she remembered from childhood. Lila stroked her hair.
“There are things I’m still figuring out. Things I’ll tell you when I’m ready. But I need you to trust me, Ava. Can you do that?”
Ava didn’t answer right away.
Then, “Only if you promise you’ll tell me before it gets worse.”
Lila exhaled. “I promise.”
They stayed there in silence, surrounded by the quiet hum of the air vents and the scent of old perfume clinging to the comforter.
Down the hall, Caleb was curled on the floor of his room, drawing furiously with crayons. The paper was torn in places. The red and black bled together in angry swirls.
He didn’t want to talk.
Didn’t want to feel.
He only knew something wasn’t right. His mother was thinner. Her smile didn’t reach her eyes. And his father was never around when it counted.
Caleb pressed the crayon harder until it snapped. He stared at the broken pieces. Then he picked up another.
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