The heat had a way of stretching itself across the Parker home like a thick blanket, pressing into the walls, the windows, the old wooden floors that swelled in the July humidity. Even the air seemed tired. Outside, cicadas rasped like tiny engines refusing to turn off.

Inside, seven-year-old Ella Parker scrubbed the kitchen tiles in slow, painful circles.

Her hands were too small for the work. Too soft. Too young. But the sponge moved anyway—left, right, left—because Margaret was watching.

“Put your back into it,” Margaret said sharply, arms crossed, wooden spoon tapping against her palm like a metronome of disapproval. “We don’t have all day.”

Ella nodded without lifting her eyes. The bleach stung her nose. Her hair, damp from sweat, clung to her cheeks. Her dress—once a bright yellow—had faded to a dull shade, stiff with overuse and detergent.

“How many times do I have to say it?” Margaret muttered, pacing. “Your father expects a clean house. And I won’t have him thinking I’m the reason you turned out so… slow.”

Slow. Lazy. Forgetful.

Margaret had a whole shelf of words she kept for Ella—words she never used on her own two daughters who spent their mornings at summer art camp, returning home with glitter on their fingers and paint-splattered shoes.

Ella didn’t go to art camp.

Ella scrubbed.

Today was worse than usual. The heat had teeth. Her skin burned against the tiles. Her small shoulders ached from earlier chores—laundry, dishes, hauling trash cans bigger than her.

Still, she scrubbed. Because if she didn’t—

“Faster,” Margaret snapped, striking the floor with the spoon when Ella slowed. “Goodness, you move like a tired old mule.”

Ella swallowed. Her palm slipped on the wet tile, and the edge of the sponge scraped her skin open. A thin line of blood bloomed.

She winced but kept going.

Her world had become quiet over the months—a place where breathing too loudly or asking too many questions felt dangerous. She had learned to shrink herself into something manageable, something easy to overlook.

But today her body was done shrinking.

A strange fuzziness washed over her. The kitchen swayed, the cabinets bending and stretching like reflections in water. She tried to sit back on her heels, but her legs were trembling beyond her control.

“Stand up,” Margaret ordered. “You still haven’t wiped down the counters. And I want the baseboards done before your father gets home.”

Home.

The word flickered through Ella’s mind like a candle flame about to go out.

Her father, Sergeant Daniel Parker, had been gone for seven days—training exercise, her stepmother said. Seven days of writing letters he might never receive. Seven days of counting hours.

He always came home smelling of dust and metal and gentle things that didn’t match his uniform. He always lifted her into his arms like she weighed nothing at all.

She imagined what he would say if he saw her like this.

Maybe that was why she tried, once more, to stand.

But the world tilted sharply.

Her knees buckled.

She fell sideways, her cheek pressing against the cool tile. She felt the sting of her scraped palm mix with the water and bleach. For a moment she thought she might scream, but even her voice seemed too tired to climb out of her throat.

Margaret stared down at her, annoyed—not surprised, never surprised.

“Oh, for heaven’s sake,” she said. “We’re not doing dramatics today. Get up.”

Ella didn’t move.

Couldn’t move.

Her eyes drifted shut, just for a second, she told herself, just long enough to rest—

Then the front door exploded open.

Heavy boots. A duffel bag hitting the floor. Keys jangling.

A voice—deep, worn, familiar.

“Margaret? Why’s the house so quiet?”

Ella’s heart tried to leap, but only managed a weak flutter.

His footsteps crossed the living room—then halted.

“Margaret… what’s going on in here?”

The voice was no longer gentle.

It was sharp, dangerous in a way reserved only for moments when things were terribly wrong.

A shadow filled the doorway. Sergeant Daniel Parker stepped into the kitchen, taking in the scene: the half-cleaned tiles, the wooden spoon on the counter, the tiny crumpled shape of his daughter on the floor.

His face drained of color.

“Ella?”

He moved before Margaret could speak—before she could rearrange her expression or her excuses.

He knelt, hands trembling as he lifted Ella into his arms. Her small body folded easily against him, too light, too limp.

Her cheek rested against his chest, and his uniform dampened instantly from the streaks of water and blood on her dress.

Her father looked up, eyes blazing.

“What did you do?” he shouted, and the sound rattled the windows.

Margaret flinched but held her chin high. “Daniel, don’t be ridiculous. She’s just tired. She’s always tired. I tell her to—”

“Stop talking.”

He stood to his full height, Ella clutched fiercely against him.

“She’s bleeding. She’s exhausted. And she is seven years old.”

The summer heat seemed to pull back, afraid of him.

Ella shivered in his arms, her small fingers clutching at the fabric of his uniform. She whispered something too faint for anyone but him to hear.

“Daddy… I tried.”

His heart split open.

“I know, sweetheart,” he murmured. “Daddy’s here now.”

His arms tightened protectively around her.

And the look he turned on Margaret would haunt her for a very long time.