My 47th birthday came quietly—just three plates on the table, a small cake, and one empty chair. That chair had been empty for two years, ever since my daughter, Karen, and I stopped speaking. Still, every year I set her place, as if the simple ritual might somehow bridge the silence between us.
That night, after the candles were blown out and the house settled into stillness, I whispered a small wish—to hear her voice again. I didn’t know that the answer to that prayer was already waiting for me, tucked away in an old drawer.
