was standing in front of the mirror, wrestling with a Windsor knot I’d never actually liked—only wearing it because Claire said it photographed well—when my phone vibrated across the dresser.

Once.

Then again.

Normally Lily would’ve just yelled down the hall. She had that little smartwatch and a voice big enough to echo through the house. “Dad!” was her usual solution to everything.

But this wasn’t that.

Dad, can you help with my zipper? Come to my room. Just you. Please close the door.

The words felt… measured.

No emojis. No rushed spelling. No recital-day excitement. No piano note or tiny heart like she always added.

Just you.

Please close the door.

Something in my chest shifted.

Downstairs, everything looked perfect in the way curated lives always do. Soft jazz floated up from the kitchen speakers. Cinnamon from one of Claire’s candles wrapped around the air like staged warmth. Lily’s sheet music was fanned across the piano in the living room, waiting for applause that hadn’t happened yet.

“Everything good up there?” Claire called brightly, the way she did when she wanted the evening to feel effortless.

“Yeah,” I answered.

It didn’t sound convincing, even to me.

The hallway stretched longer than usual as I walked toward Lily’s room. My dress shoes made soft, deliberate sounds against the runner. I knocked twice.

“Lil?”

Silence.

I opened the door.

The late-afternoon light barely touched the room. Curtains half-closed—Lily always said the sun made her eyes “itchy.” Her navy recital dress hung neatly over her desk chair.

Unworn.

She stood near the window in an oversized t-shirt with a cartoon cat and her school jeans. No humming. No nervous finger exercises on the sill. No bouncing energy.

Still.

Her phone was clutched in both hands, fingers white at the knuckles.

“Hey,” I said gently, stepping inside and closing the door like she’d asked. “What’s going on?”

Her voice came out small.

“I lied about the zipper.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “Zippers are allowed to be lied about.”

She shook her head slowly.

“You have to promise something first.”

“I promise.”

“No.” Her ponytail swayed sharply. “You have to promise you won’t freak out.”

That sentence landed like a weight dropped from somewhere high.

Kids don’t ask that unless they’ve seen adults become unpredictable.

I crouched down so we were eye level. “I’m calm. I’m right here.”

She swallowed.

“If I show you… you can’t yell. Not yet.”

The room felt smaller.

“Okay,” I said.

She turned around slowly.

When she lifted the back of her shirt, my mind scrambled for excuses before my eyes finished processing what they were seeing.

Maybe she fell.

Maybe she ran into something.

Maybe—

No.

The bruises weren’t random. They were layered. Some yellowing at the edges. Some fresh and deep.

And in the center of it all—distinct enough that my vision blurred—was the imprint of fingers.

An adult’s hand.

My body reacted before my brain did. Heat surged through me, violent and immediate. I wanted to storm downstairs. I wanted to tear apart whatever version of normal still existed in this house.

But Lily was watching my reflection in the window.

Studying my face.

Waiting to see if she’d made a mistake.

So I swallowed it.

All of it.

“Thank you for telling me,” I said, voice thin but steady.

“How long?” I asked quietly.

Her shoulders trembled.

“Since February.”

The word hit like a punch.

“Sometimes it’s not that bad,” she added quickly, like she needed to defend the situation. “Sometimes it’s just… grabbing. But sometimes he squeezes hard.”

He.

I already knew.

But I had to hear her say it.

“Who?”

She stared at the string lights outside—the ones Claire hung last summer to make the backyard look magical.

“Grandpa Roger.”

The air left my lungs.

Claire’s father.

The man who corrected posture at dinner and quoted scripture between bites. The man who believed children needed “hard edges” to grow properly.

“When?” I asked, though I hated myself for asking.

“When we go there. Saturdays. When you’re working.”

Every Saturday shift flashed in my head like a record of absence.

Claire had insisted those visits were important. “Bonding,” she called it. “Family time.”

Lily’s voice shrank further.

“He says it’s discipline. Grandma says if I behaved better, he wouldn’t have to fix me.”

Fix me.

My teeth pressed together until my jaw hurt.

Then she said something that hollowed me out.

“Mom knows.”

I felt the floor tilt.

“You told her?”

She nodded. “Last month. I showed her one. She said I was exaggerating. That Grandpa’s strict. That I’m sensitive.”

Downstairs, Claire laughed at something on the radio.

My wife knew.

And tonight she was setting out cheese and honey like we were hosting a celebration.

I glanced at my watch.

5:14 PM.