Instead, Judith blocked the doorway.
“You’re early,” she said.
“Where’s Meadow?”
“Learning.”
One word. Flat. Proud.
I pushed past her.
The house was silent in the unnatural way a house with a child should never be silent. No cartoons. No humming. No tiny feet racing through the hallway.
Then I heard crying from the guest bedroom.
After I carried Meadow out, I drove straight home with one hand gripping the steering wheel while the other stretched backward so she could hold my fingers. She sat curled beneath the hood of my raincoat in her booster seat, folded into herself like she wanted to disappear.
At home, Dustin was waiting.
His first words were not, “Is she okay?”
They were, “Mom called. You screamed at her.”
I stared at him across our kitchen while rainwater dripped from my clothes onto the tile floor. Meadow had already gone upstairs without saying a word.
