The sound she made, I don’t have a word for it. Something between a gasp and a plea.
Colin turned around, and the expression on his face was not guilt.
Not immediately.
The first thing that crossed Colin Callahan’s face in that moment was something that looked almost like calculation, like he was already, in real time, assembling an explanation.
That expression told me everything I needed to know.
I did not scream.
I did not cry.
I did not say a single word.
I picked up the gift bag from the floor.
I turned around.
I walked back to my car.
I put Dylan in his seat.
I buckled him in.
I drove home.
The 38minut drive back was the quietest I have ever been inside my own head.
Not numb.
Not in shock—or not only in shock.
Something else was happening underneath the shock.
Something was coming into focus that had been blurry for a very long time.
The late calls. The phone faced down on the counter. The single letter N on a screen I had walked past without picking up.
Every small thing I had filed away quietly for 3 months.
I could feel them now arranging themselves into a shape I could finally see clearly.
By the time I pulled into our driveway, I had made exactly one decision.
I was not going to react.
Not yet.
Not in the way Colin would expect.
Not with tears and confrontation and the kind of emotional unraveling that would hand him control of the situation before I had any idea what I was actually dealing with.
I was going to think first, and then I was going to act.
Dylan woke up when I unbuckled him.
He looked up at me with his father’s eyes, and I pushed that thought away immediately.
“Are we home already?”
“Yeah, baby,” I said. “We’re home.”
“Did we see Aunt Natalie beat?”
“Not today. She was busy.”