My phone buzzed.
Claire.
Where are you? Pancakes are getting cold. Kids asking for you.
I stared at the screen until the letters blurred.
Martin lowered his voice. “Don’t go home alone.”
But my children were there.
With her.
The drive home felt longer than the whole month since Liam died. Rain had started again, thin and silver, slicking the windshield. Every car behind me looked too close. Every red light seemed to last forever. I kept seeing Claire’s face at the funeral, pale and wet beneath the black umbrella.
Please don’t trust your sister.
When I opened the front door, Sophie ran to me first.
“Mommy, Aunt Claire burned the pancakes.”
Claire laughed from the kitchen. “Only one side. Don’t let her dramatize.”
She stood at the counter, barefoot, wearing my apron. My apron. The yellow one Liam bought me at a farmers market because he said I looked like “a very pretty hostage in our own kitchen” when I cooked.
Daniel sat at the table with Noah, helping him build a tower out of sugar packets.
I stopped so abruptly that Sophie bumped into my leg.
Daniel looked up. “There she is. Everything okay?”
His voice was warm.
Too warm.
I smiled because mothers learn to bleed quietly when their children are watching.
“Just paperwork.”
Claire studied me. “You’re pale.”
“Didn’t sleep.”
“You never sleep.” She came toward me, hand extended, and I had to fight every instinct not to flinch. “Go lie down. I’ve got the kids.”
There it was—the sentence that had once felt like love and now sounded like a locked door.
I forced a laugh. “Actually, I thought I’d take them to Mom’s for the afternoon.”
Claire’s face changed.
Only a little.
A flicker behind the eyes.
“Mom’s? Why?”
“Sophie misses her.”
Sophie looked confused. My mother lived two towns over and called daily, but Sophie did not particularly miss anyone except Liam.
Daniel set down his coffee. “Weather’s bad.”
“I’ll drive carefully.”
Claire wiped her hands on the apron. “Em, you’re exhausted. Let Daniel take them if you really want them to go.”
