“What did you say?” I asked.
“I said I didn’t know.” She shrugged. “Because I don’t.”
She stopped asking to go to the store. Stopped asking for the park. She’d make herself as small as possible, tuck her arms in, keep her eyes down, like if she just didn’t take up any space, maybe people would stop seeing her at all.
My bright, loud, mailbox-racing girl was trying to disappear.
And I didn’t know how to stop her.
I tried everything. I really did. New toys, old favorites, her grandmother, a counselor, a support group with other kids in chairs — which she sat through with her arms crossed and refused to speak. I tried a puppy, if you can believe it, a little rescue mutt named Biscuit, and she loved him, she did, but even Biscuit couldn’t reach all the way down to where she’d gone.
