Amber is a 34-year-old corporate attorney, married for ten years to Jack, and mother to seven-year-old Mia. She has recently been overwhelmed—her mother’s health is failing, with hospitalizations and expensive medications, so Amber is working more than ever to hold everything together. In the home, Jack has taken on many of the domestic and childcare duties so Amber can keep up with the crisis, and she regards him as a strong partner all along.

One night, after a long day at work, Amber comes home late, eats quickly while Mia baths, and tucks her daughter into bed. As she tidies up the living room, she discovers a drawing that Mia made: a sketch of a woman, a man, and a little girl holding hands. The man is unmistakably Jack and the little girl clearly Mia. But the woman—standing in for Amber—has been replaced by Mia’s teacher. That unsettling detail causes Amber’s stomach to twist, and it forces her to pause.

The drawing opens a hidden window into Mia’s world: her feelings of abandonment and confusion amid her mother’s hectic schedule and emotional preoccupation. Amber realises that while she’s been working relentlessly to support her mother and maintain her career, little Mia may have been left feeling invisible, yearning for the presence and attention that have been in short supply. The substitute figure of the teacher conveys not just a fondness for the teacher, but also a deeper emotional substitute for the maternal role Amber cannot fully play right now.

What started as a simple bedside routine now becomes a pivot point for Amber: to confront how the pressures of her work and family responsibilities have impacted her daughter’s emotional safety. It suggests that resolving the issue requires more than just a talk—it asks for slowing down, reconnecting, asking Mia how she feels, making her a priority, and restoring the bond that the drawing so quietly revealed.