My in-laws sent my 6-year-old daughter a cute brown teddy bear for her birthday. She smiled for a second, then suddenly froze and asked, “Mommy, what is it?

for me, I stopped replaying Lily’s birthday quite so often. For a while, I kept seeing the bear’s left eye, that tiny black circle staring out from a toy meant to be pressed against my daughter’s chest. I kept wondering what might have happened if Lily had not noticed something strange.

But she had.

That mattered.

Lily had seen what the adults tried to continue reading …