She looked up.
Her face was pale and terrified.
“He did this,” I said. “Not you.”
“He said you would hate me.”
“I don’t hate you.”
“You’re making me leave.”
“I don’t know what else to do.”
“I lost my mother. I never got to call my father Dad. Then I found my brother, and he was already dying.”
Choose Baby Gear
Her voice broke completely.
“Now he’s gone, and I’ve destroyed the only family he said might want me.”
She was sixteen.
Not a symbol of David’s dishonesty.
Not evidence of another man’s betrayal.
A frightened child had been passed from secret to secret by adults who kept deciding what was best for everyone except her.
I lowered myself onto the step.
“Move over.”
Grace blinked through her tears.
“What?”
“Make room.”
She shifted.
I sat beside her.
For a long time, neither of us spoke.
The house seemed to hold its breath around us.
“He was a coward,” I finally whispered.
Grace nodded.
