Chapter Seven: A Daughter at the Door
She didn’t know the exact moment her daughter stopped calling her “Mom.” There wasn’t a final word or dramatic exit. Just a slow, widening silence—measured in missed birthdays, unsent letters, and the cold weight of time. Estrangement doesn’t scream. It just stops speaking. Her daughter had been a college freshman the last time they spoke face to face. Old enough to know disappointment, too young to understand trauma. She had witnessed the arrests, the personality altering and swings, the shutdowns. She had watched her mother vanish into locked doors and reappear as someone more fragile, lost, and more broken than before. And when the silence started, it made a terrible kind of sense. Because what could she say? “I’m sorry I missed your school play, I was institutionalized.” “I didn’t forget your birthday—I was in prison.” “I love you, I just didn’t know how to be honest and to staying would cause more harm.” No Hallmark card could hold that much pain. No phone call could fix it. So in...