She was still crying into her hands.
“Look at me,” he said.
She did.
“You are my family,” he said. “You are my family and I am so sorry.”
She leaned forward and he held her, and I looked away and looked out the kitchen window at the yard.
We heard the car in the driveway ten minutes later.
Steven came through the front door with groceries and the easy, unsuspecting energy of a man who does not know the landscape has changed.
He stopped when he saw our faces.
“What’s going on?”
His expression showed no guilt. It showed assessment.
I held up the phone.“Whose is this?”
He looked at it.
“Old work phone,” he said. “Haven’t used it in months. Could have been hacked.”
He said it smoothly, with the practiced fluency of someone who has prepared for exactly this scenario.
Thomas stepped forward.
“Don’t.”
