She disliked the noise. The running feet. The rolling toys. The reminders that the house did not belong to her alone.
By evening, her patience snapped.
“Enough,” she snapped sharply. “I said quiet.”
The children froze. The blue ball rolled once more across the floor and stopped. Silence fell, thick and uneasy.
She walked toward them with a tight smile and told them they needed to “learn discipline.” The words sounded ordinary, but something in her tone made the older child uneasy.
They followed her outside, still believing it was just another moment of anger that would pass.
But when she opened the small doghouse at the edge of the yard, fear finally surfaced.
“Please… we didn’t do anything wrong,” the girl whispered, instinctively pulling her ten-month-old brother closer.
