“I am now.” There was a rustle. “What happened?”
Emily looked at the wedding photograph above the fireplace. Daniel smiling proudly, one hand at her waist. Emily at twenty, glowing with the reckless faith of someone who had not yet learned that loyalty could become a cage. Between them, in a later photo beside it, six-year-old Noah grinned with two missing front teeth, holding a Little League trophy Daniel had missed him receiving because of a “client emergency.”
“I think my marriage ended tonight,” Emily said.
The silence on the line changed shape. David, seven years younger but protective since childhood, became fully alert.
“What do you need?”
Emily inhaled slowly.
“For once,” she said, “I need to stop protecting him.”
Daniel came home a little after midnight.
Emily heard the garage door first, then the low mechanical rumble as it closed. Then the pause. She imagined him sitting in the driver’s seat, checking his phone, smoothing his expression, perhaps rehearsing irritation because irritation was easier than guilt. When the mudroom door opened, cold air moved through the house ahead of him.
He stepped inside laughing softly at something on his phone.
