Separate bedrooms.
No mixed signals.
No confusing Ellie.
No romance.
No playing family.
Mara said the last one while sitting at my kitchen table, still wearing the cheap gray cardigan she had worn to family court that afternoon.
I nodded too fast.
Because even then, I had noticed the way she held her daughter’s hand like the world might try to steal her.
And I had noticed the ring mark on her finger, pale and angry where a marriage had been.
For eighteen months, we followed those rules.
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