I needed to leave her therapy program immediately; I had a plane to catch. I looked for my daughter to tell her goodbye. I couldn’t find her anywhere. I asked the counselor with eyes like a vacant lot to help me. He looked behind the boys’ house and I dashed through the girls’, shouting her name loudly, then in a hoarse voice strangled with tears. Nowhere. Where was she? Time was sluicing away and I had to get in my car. I had abandoned her here, and now she was abandoning me. I drove away, keening like a stricken soul.
Jill Pabich is a writer, award-winning painter, and photographer. She has written a middle grade novel about a haunted hotel, A Misery of Magpies. Jill is a Five Minutes Founding Contributor.