The phone call was to Child Protective Services. By that afternoon, there were people in our house, people with badges and notebooks, asking questions that felt like knives. They talked to Lily for hours. They talked to us.

Greg was picked up before dinner. I didn’t see him, and honestly, I don’t think I could have handled it if I had. I would have done something I’d regret.

The investigation was fast, at least that’s what they told us. The evidence was all there, in the way Lily looked at the world now, in the way she’d stopped talking entirely, in the drawings that kept coming, one after another, all of them the same, all of them with the X’s.

The pediatrician confirmed what I’d feared. There was coaching. There was a deliberate attempt to keep her quiet, to make her think that silence was a game, that if she spoke, she was the one who failed.

It makes me sick to my stomach every time I think about it. I was right there. I was her grandmother. How did I not see it sooner? How did I miss the signs?

Renee is a mess, but she’s trying. She’s strong, even if she doesn’t feel like it. We’ve moved Lily in with me for now. It’s safer here, away from the house where those things happened. We’re working with a therapist who specializes in trauma, a woman who is patient and kind and knows how to talk to a girl who’s learned that silence is a survival skill.

Greg is in custody. They say he’s not getting out anytime soon. I don’t know what’s going to happen with the trial, and honestly, I don’t care as long as he stays away from her.

I look at Lily now, and I see a ghost of the girl she used to be. She still doesn’t talk much. She spends a lot of time in the backyard, just sitting and watching the birds. Sometimes she’ll draw, but she only uses blue and green crayons now. Never the black.

I spend my days trying to be normal. I make her favorite food. I read to her. I let her sleep with the hall light on, and the bedroom light, and the lamp in the hallway, too. I don’t care if it runs up the electric bill.

I feel like I’m walking through a fog. Everything is gray. My daughter is grieving the life she thought she had, and I’m grieving the girl I thought I knew. We don’t talk about the game. We don’t talk about the placemat.

But I still see it. I see it when I close my eyes. I see those little stick figures, and I see the X’s on their eyes, and I see the way my granddaughter looked at me, hoping I’d be proud of her for being so good at staying quiet.

I wasn’t proud. I was broken.

I know some people will say I should have spoken up sooner. They’ll say I should have noticed the bed-wetting, the lights, the way she stopped wanting to talk to her dad. They’re right. I should have. I don’t have an excuse. I just didn’t want to see it. I wanted to believe that everything was fine.

I’m the grandmother. It was my job to protect her. And I failed.

I’m still failing, in a way. I’m still here, still alive, still breathing, but a part of me died the day I saw that drawing. And I don’t think that part is ever coming back.

The house is quiet again. I think Lily is finally asleep. I hope she’s not dreaming. I hope she’s somewhere where there are no games, no quiet, no X’s.

I just keep thinking about the day we bought that pack of crayons. She was so excited, picking out the colors, wanting to draw a picture for her dad. If I hadn’t bought them, would she have drawn it in pencil? Would I have seen it differently?

It’s stupid, I know. It’s not the crayons. It’s him. It’s always been him.

I just want to go back to that Tuesday morning. I want to go back to when the only thing I had to worry about was getting the macaroni to the right consistency. I want to go back to when my granddaughter was just a little girl who talked too much.

But I can’t. None of us can. We have to live with this now. We have to live with the quiet.

Maybe one day she’ll start talking again. Maybe one day she’ll tell me about the sky, and why it’s blue, and why the clouds look like cotton candy. Maybe one day she’ll be a little sports commentator again, narrating her life like she used to.

But until then, I’ll be here. I’ll keep the lights on. I’ll keep the house safe. And I’ll wait.

I’ll wait as long as it takes. Because that’s what a grandmother does. Even if she’s broken, even if she’s scared, even if she can’t stop seeing the X’s on the paper. She waits.