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She kicked soccer balls across the backyard until the porch light buzzed on.
She left camera batteries charging beside the toaster because she was always chasing the right sunset.
She sang badly when she unloaded the dishwasher and laughed when I told her the dog had more rhythm than she did.
Then the nausea started.
At first, she said it was just her stomach.
Then she said lunch at school made her feel gross.
Then she stopped packing lunch at all.
I noticed the wrappers in her backpack were untouched.
I noticed the way she pressed one hand to her stomach when she thought nobody was looking.
I noticed her sleeping under a hoodie in the middle of the afternoon while the TV played to an empty room.
Robert noticed the bills.
That was my husband’s talent.
He could miss a child’s pain from three feet away, but he could hear the sound of money leaving an account from another room.
“She’s pretending,” he said one Tuesday evening while Maya sat at the kitchen table with her shoulders hunched over a bowl of soup she had not touched.
I looked at him because I thought I had misheard.