Over the next week, I watched my daughter like a hawk.
The signs were everywhere once I knew to look.
She started setting aside toys. Not playing with them—setting them aside. One green dinosaur. A blue crayon. Half her cookies.
"Who are those for?" I asked casually.
"My brother," she said. Like it was obvious. Like he'd always been there.
"Honey, where is your brother?"
"At Grandma's."
"And what's his name?"
She frowned, thinking hard. "I can't say. Grandma said names are powerful."
Powerful. What five-year-old talks like that?
I checked her tablet. No unusual searches. I checked her drawings. Mostly flowers, rabbits, our family—stick figures of me, Daniel, her, and the dog.
Wait.
I pulled out the drawings from the past month. Laid them all on the kitchen table.
In the older drawings—before the weekend—it was just us. Me. Daniel. Ava. The dog.
In the newer drawings? There was a fourth figure. Smaller. Standing next to Ava. Always with a smile, but no eyes. Just empty circles where eyes should be.
I took a photo and sent it to my sister, Lisa, who's a child psychologist.
"Am I overreacting?" I asked.
Her response came five minutes later:
"Bring her in. Tomorrow."
