After Uncle Marcus visits one summer, seven-year-old Elara changes from a bright, talkative child into a silent, withdrawn girl. The family senses something terrible has happened but refuses to confront it. Her mother hides behind denial, her father retreats into silence, and the household becomes haunted by unspoken pain.

At Elara’s eighth birthday, she smashes a porcelain doll and says, “It’s broken. You can’t fix it.” The moment shatters the family’s pretense. That night, the narrator and Elara silently acknowledge their shared trauma — bound together by the dark truth their parents will never face.

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