CHAPTER 1 — The Child Who Saw Everything
Lily didn’t understand adult silence.
She only knew that the house had changed after the woman in the pretty cream clothes smiled too much near the stairs.
That morning, she sat on the kitchen floor playing with wooden blocks while Rosa folded laundry faster than usual.
“Momma,” Lily said again.
Rosa didn’t answer immediately. That alone scared her.
Lily pulled at her sleeve.
“I saw her push the grandma,” she whispered.
The blocks in Rosa’s hands stopped moving.
For a moment, there was only the sound of the refrigerator humming and distant footsteps upstairs.
Rosa crouched slowly.
“Sweetheart… what did you say?”
Lily looked down, tracing the floor tile with her finger.
“The pretty lady,” she said. “She pushed her. Then she cried after.”
Rosa felt her stomach tighten.
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Because children didn’t invent pauses.
They only remembered them.
