My attorney, Mara Singh, sat across from me in her office while I stared at the page.
Mara was in her early fifties and had the unnerving ability to become calmer the angrier everyone else became.
“Do not contact Chloe directly,” she said.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“Do not argue with your parents.”
“That one’s harder.”
“Do not post anything online.”
“I don’t post online.”
“Good.”
She closed the petition.
“The strongest thing you can do right now is remain exactly who you have been for twelve years.”
I looked at her.
“What does that mean?”
“The stable parent.”
“I’m not their parent.”
Mara held my gaze.
“Kevin.”
Something in my chest tightened.
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes,” she said. “I do.”
Chloe started calling the children.
I had no idea how she got their numbers.
Probably my mother.
Leo blocked her after the first call.
Sophie answered twice.
The second conversation ended with Sophie locking herself in her bedroom and crying so quietly I almost didn’t hear.
I sat outside the door.
“Soph?”
“I’m fine.”
“You inherited that lie from Leo.”
Silence.
Then the door opened.
She was sitting on the floor, guitar beside her.
Her eyes were swollen.
“She asked if you ever hit us.”
I felt something inside me go perfectly still.
“What?”
“She said maybe I was scared to tell the truth.”
I sat beside her.
“What did you say?”
“I hung up.”
“Okay.”
“She kept saying you were young when she left. That you resented her. That you wanted a family.”
I didn’t answer.
Sophie wiped her face angrily.
“Did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Want a family?”
I looked down at my hands.
“At twenty-three?”
She nodded.
“No.”
That surprised her.
