The light is soft. The room smells like clean laundry and baby shampoo.
Normal.
It hits me like a wave.
Laney looks up.
One glance at my face and she knows.
“It’s over,” she says.
I nod.
She doesn’t ask for details.
She just stands and walks to me carefully, not waking the baby.
I take them both into my arms.
That’s when my knees almost give.
Laney’s hand presses into my back.
“Hey,” she whispers. “I’ve got you.”
I haven’t heard anyone say that to me in a long time.
I bury my face in her hair.
For the first time since this started…
I let myself breathe.
That night,after Emmy is asleep in her crib, I sit on the edge of the bed and realize my hands are shaking.
Laney kneels in front of me and takes them.
“You don’t have to be strong anymore,” she says.
I swallow.
“I don’t know how to turn it off.”
“I do,” she says. “Come back to us.”
And I finally understand:
The fight didn’t end with Eleanor's death.
It ended when I walked through my front door.
98
Laney
I’ve seen Saint come home hurt before.
Bloody. Bruised. Silent.
