I didn't know if I was brave enough. The part of me that had built these walls, that had survived by hiding, screamed that I wasn't.
But another part—small, bruised, still somehow alive—remembered the taste of his kiss and the sound of Sarah's laughter and the way "Mommy Emma" had felt like coming home.
I pressed ‘call’ before I could talk myself out of it.
It rang once.
Twice.
Three times.
Then his voice, cautious and rough: "Emma?"
At the sound of his voice, my courage left me, and I hung up.
I couldn’t do it.
16.Cole
My six-year-old asked me if everyone she loves is going to leave her. I didn't have a good answer. Parent of the year, right here.
The first morning after Emma asked for space, I woke to silence. Not the peaceful quiet of the mountain, the heavy, wrong kind. The kind that meant Sarah wasn't chattering to her stuffed animals, wasn't asking what was for breakfast before I'd even opened my eyes.
I found her in her room, sitting on her bed, staring at the wall.
"Hey, kiddo. You okay?"
"I'm fine."
"You hungry? I can make pancakes."
"I'm not hungry."
She'd never in her life turned down pancakes. I stood in her doorway, completely out of my depth.
"Sarah—"
"Can I just stay in my room today?"
"You have school."
"I don't wanna go."
I didn't push. I should have pushed. Instead, I called her in sick and spent the day watching her move through the cabin like a ghost, picking things up and putting them down, starting activities and abandoning them.
Great start, Brennan. Really nailing this single-parent thing.
By Wednesday, the ghost had turned angry.
I'd made grilled cheese for dinner, one of the three things I could reliably produce without setting off smoke alarms. Sarah poked at it with her finger, leaving dents in the bread. Then she shoved the plate away so hard it nearly went off the table.
"I'm not hungry!"
"Sarah, you need to eat something. You barely touched your lunch."
"No."
"Your body needs food to?—"
