By the time the front door closed behind you, your hands were shaking too badly to unlock the car on the first try.
Dallas heat hit you like a wall, thick and bright and almost obscene after the cold cream-and-gold perfection of the house. Lucy was still crying, those tiny, outraged newborn cries that sounded too fragile to survive in a world like that one. You climbed into the driver’s seat, shut the door, and just sat there for a second, chest heaving, one hand gripping the wheel while the other cupped the back of your daughter’s head. The collar box was still in your purse, and knowing that made you feel sick.
Your phone lit up almost immediately.
Alec. Then Alec again. Then Alec a third time before the first call had even fully stopped vibrating. He had been out on the terrace taking a call from his grandfather’s office when the whole thing happened, and by the time he got back inside, you were already gone, carrying Lucy out while his mother called after you that you were “making yourself look worse.”
You let the phone ring until it stopped.
Then you drove.
You did not go to the condo you shared with Alec.
You went to your parents’ house in Richardson, the small brick place where your mother still kept too many ceramic birds on the kitchen windowsill and your father still believed every problem in life became at least ten percent more survivable if somebody put coffee on. When your mother opened the front door and saw your face, saw the wet tracks on your cheeks and the rigid way you were holding Lucy, she did not ask a single question. She stepped aside, took the diaper bag from your shoulder, and said, “Come in, baby.”
