She looked at me with startling seriousness. “I wanted to tell you. But every time I thought about it, you looked like you might break.”
No child should have language like that for her mother.
Something shifted inside me then, something painful and clarifying. I had spent so much energy trying not to burden Lily with the truth of my fear that I had burdened her with something else instead: the responsibility of reading me, protecting me, assessing how much I could bear. Not because I had failed to love her. Because I had failed to understand how visible my collapse was to the person who loved me most.
I squeezed her hand gently. “You are never responsible for keeping me from breaking.”
She frowned. “But I love you.”
“I know.” My throat tightened. “And I love you. But loving someone doesn’t mean carrying things alone.”
She thought about that in silence, then nodded.
When we got home, the house felt different.