I expected my daughter to come home from summer camp with endless stories, new friendships, and a suitcase full of dirty clothes. Instead, she returned carrying a silence I couldn't understand.
That summer, the laundry basket sat between me and the television. I was folding Kathleen's clean camp clothes into three neat piles on the couch cushion. T-shirts, shorts, and the one hoodie she insisted on packing even though the forecast said 80° for two straight weeks.
At 35, I'd folded a lot of my daughter's clothes. It never got old, actually. Every stack felt like proof that I was doing okay on my own.
"Mom, are you even listening?"
It never got old, actually.
***
My 13-year-old daughter was the kind of child who talked nonstop about school, made friends wherever she went, and told me every little detail about her day. She spent weeks talking about all the fun she and her friends were going to have and counting down the days until the bus left.
