My eyes burned.
“I thought progress was good.”
“It is.”
He paused.
“But I wanted one thing that wasn’t progress.”
My throat closed.
“What did you want it to be?”
Mason answered immediately.
“Mine.”
Hannah began crying.
And suddenly I understood why she had looked terrified all evening.
It wasn’t because she feared being caught lying.
She feared watching those words break me.
There is a particular kind of pain that comes from discovering you have hurt someone while loving them as hard as you knew how.
There is nowhere to put that pain.
No villain to blame.
No cruel intention to condemn.
Only consequences.
I looked at my son and saw every version of him at once.
The toddler covering his ears during thunderstorms.
The six-year-old beneath the kitchen table after a birthday party became too loud.
The eleven-year-old who memorized train schedules.
The fourteen-year-old who didn’t want to attend school dances.
