Chapter 4: The Son Who Went Quiet

After prom night, Liam changed in ways I kept calling grief because grief was easier to face than guilt… Continue Reading ⬇️

He stopped laughing. He locked his bedroom door. When I knocked, he answered from behind the wood.

“Please, Mom. Just don’t come in.”

I thought I was respecting his pain. Looking back, I think part of me was afraid of what I might find if I pushed.

At Christmas, John tried to say what I refused to hear.

“Camila, maybe she left.”

I looked up from Livia’s empty stocking. “She wouldn’t do that to me.”

John’s face tightened. “Maybe that sentence is part of the problem.”

I hated him for it. Mostly because I could not fully prove him wrong.

By August, Liam left for college. At his car, I hugged him too tightly.

“Don’t disappear on me too,” I whispered.

His eyes filled. “I’m trying not to.”

I did not understand then that my children had not left my house all at once. They had been backing away for years. Continue Reading ⬇️