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“Where is she?” she asks, the little whine of distress in her voice drilling into me. The room tilts slightly as I watch the tears roll down her cheeks.

Where indeed?

“I don’t know yet,” I say carefully.

“Is she lost?”

“I think…” I swallow, choosing every word with care. “I think she might be somewhere she needed to go.”

Lucy looks up then. Her eyes are intensely Maggie’s. Big, brown, and too expressive for safety. “Why didn’t she take me?”

There are some words that come out of children’s mouths that should legally require warning labels.

These should come with sirens.

I pull out the chair across from her and sit. Carefully. Like sudden movement might make everything worse.

“I don’t know,” I say again.

It feels criminally negligent, how often I say it.

Lucy’s face closes. She wipes away her tears and disappears inward, gaze dropping back to her plate. The toast remains untouched. Two failed triangles cooling beneath my incompetence.

“I’m not hungry.”

“Okay.”

That’s wrong. Even I know it’s wrong. Children need food, proper nourishment. Stability. Reassurance. Probably vitamins. I’ve provided toast cut incorrectly and a series of emotionally bankrupt non-answers.

Ben would've known what to do.

No, he wouldn’t. Ben would've made the toast dance across the table until Lucy laughed, then called it Breakfast Theater and somehow convinced her to eat three bites while pretending to be a dragon.

But Maggie would've known.

And that's the problem.

Maggie is the missing piece in every room.

By ten-thirty, I've attempted three activities with my niece.

Coloring, which Lucy rejects because the blue crayon is “too loud.” A puzzle, which she starts then silently abandons under the couch. A children’s movie, which lasts six minutes before she asks if the cartoon dog’s mommy is dead.

At that point, I turn off the television.

Not because I’m avoiding the subject.

Obviously.

Because screen time is probably bad. Or good. Or recommended in moderation. I don’t know. I searched the internet at two in the morning and found nine different expert opinions, all of which made me feel like I should be arrested for child endangerment.

Now, Lucy is sitting on the floor in the living room, knees tucked under her, holding Bun by one ear. I sit on the couch, then realize I'm looming, so I move to the floor. Then I realize that’s weird too, like I’m trying to infiltrate her space with forced casualness.

I settle for leaning against the coffee table.

“Do you want to go out somewhere?”

“No.”