He just stood there in our living room in a quiet suburb outside Columbus, Ohio, with the lamp too bright and the air too heavy… and he chose her.
Claire’s chin lifted. Triumphant. Like she’d finally won a game she’d been playing for years.
I’d been in that girl’s life since she was sixteen.
I took her to doctor appointments when Mark couldn’t leave work.
I sat through her sulky silences at dinner.
I bought her prom dress when her mom “forgot.”
And now she was twenty, spoiled and sharp as a shard of glass, and she had decided I was in her way.
Mark stared at me like I was something he could scrape off his shoe.
“Just… go,” he said again. “We’ll talk when you’ve calmed down.”
Calmed down.
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