Olivia was fifteen when her grandmother finally grasped the weight the teenager had been carrying alone for years.
Her mother died when Olivia was eight, leaving her father struggling to cope. Grief consumed him in ways that prevented him from fully supporting his daughter. For years, it was just the two of them, and Olivia learned early to keep her emotions contained, to make herself small, and to avoid adding to her father’s pain.
When he remarried, the grandmother allowed herself a cautious optimism. His new wife, Karen, appeared kind and attentive at first, always polite and smiling when others were around. She promised to “be there” for Olivia, claiming to understand the difficulty of losing her mother so young. For a time, the household seemed calm.
