The silence had been dragging on for far too long, stretching from a mild concern into a suffocating, almost unbearable blanket of dread. My daughter, Clara, had always been the one to check in on me, whether it was a quick morning text before her workday began, or our traditional weekly Sunday dinner where we would catch up on everything happening in our lives. But this time, the line went entirely dead. Seven days of unanswered calls, ignored text messages, and unreturned emails had left me a nervous wreck. My maternal instinct was screaming that something was fundamentally wrong, but...
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