Something had been off for the past two weeks with Lila, my 9-year-old daughter. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it at first. She’d been coming home later than usual.
A woman looks thoughtful and a bit worried | Source: Midjourney
At first, it was just ten, maybe fifteen minutes, so I brushed it off, thinking she was lingering with friends. But then those few minutes stretched into nearly an hour, and my heart began to race every time the clock ticked past her usual time.
I’d ask her, trying to keep things casual, “Lila, sweetie, why are you home so late?”
And each time, she’d shrug, her voice light as if it were nothing. “Oh, just some after-school stuff, Mom.”
But here’s the thing: I knew her schedule inside and out. I’d memorized every extracurricular, every teacher’s note.
