On the second night, my daughter came into the kitchen while I was rinsing lunch containers.
“Is Dad moving back?” she asked.
I nearly dropped the sponge. “No, baby. Why would you ask that?”
She shrugged, but her mouth tightened. “He told Micah he’d sleep anywhere to be close to us.”
My fingers curled around the counter.
I found Brian in the garage ten minutes later. Micah was beside him.
“Daddy would always be here if he could,” Brian was saying. “I love you and your sister more than anything.”
“Is Dad moving back?”
I knocked once on the open door. “Micah, go choose your clothes for school.”
Brian leaned back. “What? What do you need?”
I stepped closer and lowered my voice. “Don’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Don’t make the kids feel like you’re being kept from them.”
“I’m not allowed to say I miss them, Laura? You want to control that too?”
“Say you miss them, sure. But don’t turn it into a tragedy with witnesses under four feet tall.”
He gave a short laugh. “Still controlling the script.”
“What? What do you need?”
“You’re sleeping ten feet from my laundry room because I didn’t want you stranded,” I said. “Don’t make me regret that.”
He looked away. “Fine.”
But with Brian, fine had never meant finished.
***
On the fifth morning, he packed before the kids came downstairs and thanked Alan in the driveway.
“Appreciate it,” he said.
“Take care of yourself, Brian. Give Angela our regards,” Alan replied, clapping him on the back.
I said nothing.
“Don’t make me regret that.”
Two days later, Mrs. Donnelly knocked on my door.
She’d lived next door since before we bought the house and knew everything on the block.
“Laura, darling,” she whispered. “I think you need to see something.”
I wiped peanut butter from my thumb. “What is it?”
“My security camera catches part of your garage.”
Mrs. Donnelly pulled out her phone. “I didn’t want to get involved, but after what I saw him doing at 4:17 every morning, I couldn’t ignore it.”
