“It matters to Lily,” I said.

His expression shifted, not into guilt, exactly, but annoyance that I had made him step into fatherhood when he was busy exiting husbandhood. “I’ll see her.”

“When?”

“When things settle down.”

Things. Settle down. Language can be such a coward.

Lily heard the suitcases rolling over the hardwood and appeared in the hallway holding her rabbit by one ear. She looked at Mark, then at the bags, then at me.

“Are you going on a trip?” she asked.

He crouched down to her level, and because I knew him so well, I saw the strain in the smile before it reached his mouth. “Just for a little while, bug.”

“How little?”

“Not too little. Not too long.”

She frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”

No, I thought. No, it doesn’t.

He kissed her forehead, stood up, wheeled the bags past us, and left.

No shouting. No dramatic slammed door. Just the click of the lock and the sound of tires backing out of the driveway. I stood there in the hallway while Lily looked up at me with enormous, bewildered eyes.

“Did Daddy forget something?” she asked.

I think something in me broke permanently right then, not because of Mark leaving but because I had to answer her.

“No, baby,” I whispered.