The kitchen went silent.
I looked at him.
His jaw tightened as if he regretted saying even that much.
Maura grabbed her purse.
“Come on,” she snapped at Elowen. “We are leaving.”
Elowen looked at the sleeping baby.
Then the toddler.
Then Wren.
“Where?” she asked.
Maura did not answer.
Because there was no answer.
That was the first crack.
Not in the problem.
In the illusion that my mother could fix everything by sacrificing someone else.
By noon, I had failed my pharmacology practice quiz, spilled coffee down my only clean scrub top, and cried in the supply closet at the diner for exactly four minutes.
Then I washed my face and went back to work.
Because life did not pause for emotional ruin.
Mr. Gideon picked up the kids from the kitchen table and deposited them at the public family services office with Elowen and my mother.
He claimed he was only driving them because he did not want sticky fingers on his banister for a second night.
