Mark withdrew his hand from the envelope and straightened the cuff of his shirt. He had already put his wedding ring in his coat pocket that morning. I noticed it only then, because the absence gleamed more loudly than the gold ever had.
“Can we not do this in front of Lily?” I whispered.
“We’re doing it now,” he said.
That was Mark’s way in the end: not angry enough to be honest, not kind enough to wait. Just efficient. As if the collapse of a marriage was another unpleasant administrative task between conference calls.
Lily’s gaze moved from his face to mine and back again. Children are better than adults at recognizing danger because they don’t waste time lying to themselves about tone.
“Daddy?” she said. “Are you mad?”
“No,” he said, too quickly. “No, sweetheart.”
He didn’t look at her when he said it.