“This conversation is not happening in front of the children,” I said.
Marcus’s father, Harold, appeared from the dining room doorway. He looked thinner than I remembered, his silver hair combed carefully, his Christmas sweater slightly crooked at the collar. He stared at the children, then at me, and his expression held something I had not expected.
Shame.
“Kesha,” he said quietly. “There’s a sitting room down the hall. The children can have cocoa there.”
“No,” Ethan said immediately.
I looked down.
His small jaw had tightened. That same jaw. Marcus’s jaw. “We came with Mom.”
“And you’re staying with me,” I assured him. “But grown-up conversations can be boring.”
Sophia whispered, “Or scary.”
I knelt in front of them, smoothing Olivia’s coat sleeve, brushing snow from Noah’s hair. “Nothing scary is going to happen. You are safe. You are loved. And we’re only staying as long as we choose to stay.”
