My daughter-in-law always hid her hands and back—until a beach trip revealed the truth she had been carrying all along.

pretending we could talk around it.

“She was seven,” he said.

I looked up.

“There was a fire in her house. Her mother got her out through a bedroom window, but not before…” He swallowed. “Not before Emily was burned.”

I pressed a hand to my mouth.

“Her back, her arms, the backs of her hands. Multiple surgeries. Skin grafts. Years of it.”

“Oh, Ben.”

He didn’t continue reading …