Nothing in Lily’s voice carried drama or warning. She asked it the same way she asked about homework or the weather, as if it were a small, practical detail that belonged neatly to the rhythm of our day. It slipped into the room while I was drying dishes, sunlight pooling across the kitchen counter, the hum of the refrigerator filling the quiet spaces between her words. She didn’t look up from the drawing she was coloring. She didn’t hesitate. She simply mentioned the “Father’s Day surprise dinner game” at school and wondered, with casual curiosity, whether I preferred lasagna or grilled chicken.

There was no tremor in her voice, no awareness that she had just shifted something enormous inside me. That was what unsettled me most. Her innocence became a mirror, reflecting the gap between the world she lived in and the one I believed we shared. I had always thought our lives were transparent to one another, that the important pieces were visible and solid and mutually understood. Yet the way she said it—so confidently, so assured—made it clear that she carried knowledge I did not.