The suggestion felt like surrender. Sending his son away would mean losing the last living piece of Laura. But the cries echoing down the hall weren’t tantrums. They were the sound of something broken.
In the east wing, Emily Torres squeezed out a mop into a bucket. Twenty-four years old, with calloused hands and perceptive hazel eyes, she had just started that morning as a cleaner. She had raised her younger siblings while her mother worked double shifts. She knew the language of tired children.
And that wasn’t the sound of a “bad” child. It was grief.
Ignoring strict instructions to avoid “the little monster’s” room, Emily quietly pushed her cart upstairs. The nursery was in chaos—torn books, scattered toys. Oliver clung to the crib rails, red-faced, eyes swollen from crying.
When he noticed her, he stiffened, lips curling as if ready to bite again.
Emily didn’t approach. She simply sat cross-legged on the floor a few feet away.
“That’s a big storm you’ve got in there,” she murmured softly. “I’d be mad too if nobody understood me.”
Oliver blinked.
She picked up a worn copy of The Little Duck and began reading in exaggerated, playful voices. She didn’t try to touch him. She just stayed.