Darius went white.
“Buddy.”
Caleb backed away.
“Caleb.”
He ran.
Darius moved after him.
I blocked the doorway.
“Don’t.”
“He heard me.”
“Yes.”
“I need to explain.”
“No.
You need to understand what you just did.”
“Maya—”
“Pack a bag.”
He stared at me.
“You don’t mean that.”
“I have never meant anything more.”
That night,
the man I had loved for eleven years left our house carrying the same flight bag Caleb used to chase through the hallway.
Caleb watched from his bedroom window.
He didn’t wave.
The lawyers arrived next.
Nothing destroys the illusion of family faster than legal terminology.
Petitioner.
Respondent.
Genetic parent.
Gestational parent.
Presumed parent.
Best interest of the child.
Every phrase sounded clinical enough to fit inside a filing cabinet.
None of them could describe how it felt when Caleb crawled into my bed at three in the morning and asked whether somebody could make him leave.
