“Leave,” I told my mother.
“You would exile your own mother over that girl?”
Over that girl.
The blade dropped.
I opened the door again.
“Leave.”
She searched my face for the son she had trained to soften, mediate, and forgive. But that man was gone.
She gathered her purse with shaking hands and walked out without another word.
I locked the door twice.
For a moment, I stood in the foyer, surrounded by silence, and realized I had forgotten how to breathe. Rage had carried me this far, but now it drained away, leaving only wreckage.
My wife was upstairs, wounded in ways I did not yet know how to name. Our son was still inside her body. And I had missed the signs because I had convinced myself that providing money meant providing safety.
Then Lauren appeared at the top of the stairs.
“Daniel,” she said softly. “She’s asking for you.”
I ran.
The master bathroom smelled of lavender and steam. The tub was half-drained. A gray, soaked towel lay on the tile. Emily sat on the edge of our bed in one of my oversized T-shirts, wrapped in a robe, her wet hair braided over one shoulder.
She looked so small that my chest hurt.
Lauren squeezed my arm once and left.
I knelt between Emily’s knees.