Shame, maybe.
Fear.
I wish I could tell you I recognized it.
I didn’t.
I was twenty-three.
I thought emergencies came with explanations.
“Chloe, what the hell is happening?”
She whispered, “I can’t do this right now.”
Then she turned.
Noah broke away from me.
“Mommy!”
He ran down one porch step.
I caught him before his bare foot hit the sidewalk.
“Mommy!”
Chloe opened the car door.
“Chloe!”
She looked at us once.
One frozen picture I have never been able to erase.
Leo standing beneath the porch light, silent.
Sophie clutching that ruined teddy bear.
Noah struggling in my arms.
Mia screaming.
And me staring at my older sister, still believing she was going to explain herself.
Instead, she got into the car.
The engine started.
Her taillights disappeared into the rain.
Noah kept screaming after the car was already gone.
I checked my watch.
7:14 p.m.
One hour, I told myself.
I got everyone inside.
I had exactly one towel clean enough for children.
Leo refused it.
“I’m fine.”
“You’re shaking.”
“I said I’m fine.”
He had always been a serious kid, but that night there was something different in his face.
Something old.
I found him a pair of my socks. They came almost to his knees.
Sophie sat on my couch without speaking.
Noah wandered from window to window.
Mia needed a diaper.
I had never changed one.
I opened the diaper bag and stared at its contents like someone had handed me equipment from a foreign planet.
