So I gathered them. School records showing I was Lily’s emergency contact, classroom volunteer, medical decision-maker. Calendars with dentist appointments, parent-teacher conferences, allergy consults, birthday parties, summer camps, and ballet lessons—each box filled in my handwriting. Bank statements. Tax returns. Screenshots of Mark canceling visits. Messages from him saying he was too busy to call. Receipts from groceries, school shoes, pediatric prescriptions, birthday decorations, haircuts, and a thousand other invisible expenses that mothers absorb so regularly no one calls them proof until a courtroom requires it.
All the while, Lily grew quieter.
Not in some dramatic movie way. She still went to school, still did her homework, still remembered to feed Mrs. Peaches, our aging orange cat. But the music went out of her. She stopped humming while she brushed her teeth. She stopped narrating elaborate adventures for her stuffed animals in the backseat. She no longer ran to the window when the ice cream truck came down the street. Her teachers wrote kind little notes about her seeming distracted. She began chewing the sleeves of her sweaters until the cuffs frayed.