The moment every person in that room felt the old pattern asking to be continued.
He would get angry.
She would smooth it over.
My mother would excuse it.
I would pay for it.
The kids would absorb it.
But Elowen did not smooth anything.
She took the flowers from his hand, set them on the porch rail, and said, “You can arrange a visit through the center.”
He stared at her.
“You’re really doing this?”
“Yes.”
He looked at me.
“You did this.”
The old me would have defended myself.
The new me surprised everyone, including me.
“No,” I said. “But I’m proud to be blamed for it.”
Mr. Gideon made a sound that might have been a laugh.
Sylas left.
Not quietly.
But he left.
The toddler cried for twenty minutes.
Elowen held him the whole time and cried too.
Wren sat beside me at the table.
