He had already made up the guest room with clean sheets. A portable crib from my cousin waited in the corner because apparently, with one phone call during the drive, half the family had quietly mobilized.
I sat down on the bed and cried.
Not neatly. Not silently. The kind of crying that shakes your shoulders and empties your lungs and leaves your face hot and swollen.
Dad didn’t tell me to calm down. He handed me tissues and sat in the chair by the dresser, close enough to stay, far enough not to crowd me.
When I could finally talk, I whispered, “I should’ve left sooner.”
He rubbed a hand over his jaw. “Maybe. But people don’t leave control the first time it shows up. They leave when reality gets louder than the excuses.”
I thought about that long after Evan fell asleep.
The next morning, I woke up expecting dread.
Instead I found stillness.
No Patricia sighing over the cost of coffee. No Derek muttering that he had plans and asking me to keep Evan quiet while he slept. No sense that every movement I made was being graded.
Dad had already made scrambled eggs. He had also printed out contact information for a family-law attorney one of his coworkers recommended.