The marriage had collapsed inside their own home, fed by silence, guilt, and unanswered calls.
“I’m not trying to take Noah from you,” Daniel said. “And I’m not trying to punish you.”
He placed the papers on the nightstand.
“But I can’t keep pretending we’re a healthy family simply because our Christmas photographs look happy.”
Evelyn looked at Rebecca’s shoes on the floor.
At first, she had seen them as evidence of betrayal.
Now she understood that they represented a different kind of absence—one each of them had used in a separate way.
Noah had used Rebecca’s absence to punish himself.
Daniel had used it to remember the life their family once had.
And Evelyn had used it to justify a hardness she had never allowed herself to examine.
