My eyes catch on a frame sitting on the shelf near the hallway.
I don’t mean to stare.
But I do.
It’s Maddison.
She’s smiling—really smiling. Not the tight, polite version she wore for cameras. Not the hollow one I remember from the last time I saw her. This one is real.
And she’s not alone. There’s a man beside her. His arm is around her shoulders, easy, like he belongs there. Like he’s been there long enough that it’s natural.
Maddison follows my gaze. There’s a quiet shift beside me—so small most people wouldn’t notice it. But I do.
“He’s a good man,” she says softly.
I keep my eyes on the frame. Don’t move. Don’t react.
“He… showed up,” she continues, her voice steady, but quieter now. “When everything fell apart, he stayed. He didn’t try to fix it. He didn’t try to make it make sense.” A small pause. “He just sat with me in it.”
Something tight pulls in my chest.
“I didn’t have to be strong with him,” she says. “I didn’t have to hold it together. I could just… break. And he didn’t leave.”
Silence settles between us again. Heavy, but not sharp. I nod once, barely.
Because I understand.
Now I do.
She takes a breath. “When Ivy went missing, you shut down. Completely. And I understand why. I do. You were grieving in the only way you knew how. You went into that room of her things and… disappeared. You and Taylor were out every night searching, chasing leads, chasing shadows. You needed to be in motion. You needed to hunt.”
Her jaw clenches slightly.
“And someone had to stay.”
I look up.
“Someone had to stand in front of the cameras. Someone had to answer the questions. Someone had to beg strangers to look at our daughter’s face and remember it.” Her voice thins, butshe keeps going. “Every interview. Every press conference. Every time they replayed that footage of me breaking down— that was me.”
She swallows. “You were out chasing leads. I was the one holding it together in public.”
The guilt lands heavier now.
“I needed someone who would sit with me while I fell apart.”
I close my eyes.
“I just needed you. To talk. To cry. To breathe with me. I needed us to fall apart together instead of separately.”
Her voice cracks for just a second. “And you couldn’t. Every time I came to you, you were either gone… or locked behind a door.”
She squeezes her fingers together. “And that loneliness, God, it was louder than anything I’ve ever felt. I kept trying to reach you, and every time I failed, I broke a little more.”
I whisper, “I’m sorry.” It’s all I can say.
“I know.” She nods. “And I know you were hurting just as much as I was. But the man I needed then wasn’t the man you could be. So, when I finally left… I wasn’t running somewhere new. I was running from drowning.”
She shakes her head gently. “I’m not the same person I was before she was taken. And you’re not either.”
