“No.” Too sharp. I softened it. “No, I need the air.”
Silence settled over the kitchen.
Noah knocked over the sugar tower and whispered, “Oops.”
Daniel smiled at him but kept his eyes on me. “You sure everything’s okay?”
I looked at the man my husband had named in his death file.
Then at my sister.
Then at my children.
“Everything’s fine.”
Packing took seven minutes and felt like robbery. I threw clothes into backpacks, grabbed birth certificates from the lockbox, Liam’s file from under my coat, and Sophie’s stuffed rabbit because she could not sleep without it. Claire followed me from room to room, asking questions in a voice that kept getting thinner.
“Why do they need overnight bags?”
“They spill things.”
“Emily.”
“What?”
She stood in the hallway outside my bedroom. Behind her, Daniel’s reflection appeared in the dark TV screen.
“What did Martin give you?”
The world stopped.
I turned slowly. “What?”
Claire’s lips parted. For the first time since we were children, she looked afraid of me.
“I mean… you said paperwork. Was it insurance?”
I held her gaze. “Yes.”
Daniel’s reflection did not move.
Claire swallowed. “Good. That’s good. You need money now.”
I stepped past her.
She caught my wrist.
Not hard.
Just enough.
“Em,” she whispered, “whatever happens, remember I love you.”
My skin went cold beneath her fingers.
I pulled free.
In the car, Sophie asked why Aunt Claire was crying on the porch.
I did not look back.
“She’s sad,” I said.
“Because of Daddy?”
I tightened my hands around the wheel. “Yes, baby.”
Noah sniffled. “Everybody is sad because of Daddy.”
Nobody spoke after that.
My mother opened her door before I knocked, as if some part of her had been waiting for disaster to find its way up the porch steps.
She was sixty-eight, small and sharp-eyed, with gray hair pinned in a knot and hands that had raised two daughters after our father vanished into another woman’s life. She took one look at my face and said, “Kids, cookies are in the blue tin. Living room. Now.”
