When we walked outside, the afternoon sun was shining across the parking lot.
Emily walked a few steps ahead of us.
Her shoulders were still slightly hunched, but she wasn’t staring at the ground anymore.
She paused beside a tree and looked up at the branches.
Mark stopped beside me.
“Zoe?”
I turned toward him.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
His voice was quieter than usual.
“I should have called you the first morning she told me what was happening.”
“Yes,” I replied. “You should have.”
He nodded.
“I kept thinking that if I could make her feel safe for a few hours, she’d be ready to face it the next day. Then the next day came, and she was just as frightened. I should have realized that we were avoiding the problem instead of helping her solve it.”
I looked toward our daughter.
“I understand why you wanted to help her. I really do. But you cannot protect her by helping her hide things from me.”
