How can she confront her family?

my friend, who we'll call sharon, had a dog named sammy when she was younger. she remembers suddenly realizing one day that she had no clue where the dog was, but no one else said anything. after maybe a week she asked her mom where sammy was and her mom said "i don't know" (almost in a sing-song way, according to sharon, that suggested her mom wasn't quite at ease with it but was trying to p it off as nothing). after that, nothing about the dog was said by anyone ever again. in fact, sharon remembered sammy earlier and was somewhat uncomfortable because not only did she realize she'd repressed it to the point where she forgot about it, but it also disturbed her that her family would repress it too and she wanted to know why. if a dog goes missing, wouldn't it be much easier (and normal) for the family to ask eachother where the dog is and look for it, not forget about it entirely? and now sharon is kind of messed up about it because she can't understand how her 12 year old self wouldn't be able to care about a dog they'd had over a year missing. she thinks she's a cruel person for that, and is even referring it back to the fact that she never had much of a liking for dogs when she was younger and she didn't give sammy much affection. i don't believe she's cruel and i know how much this is bothering her. she wants to ask her mom in particular about it but thinks (probably rightfully) that it would be very odd going up to her mother and saying, "that dog when had while ago, what happened to it anyway?" but she doesn't know how to go about this. i think her whole family, including herself, has been scared to the point of repressing this, because the longer you hold something off the harder it is to take care of it.