Not tired.
Hollow.
“I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t do this anymore.”
I thought he meant the visitors.
The phone calls.
The sympathy.
“What do you mean?”
He looked away.
“I can’t…”
“Carl.”
When he finally looked at me, I barely recognized him.
“I can’t stay here, Olivia.”
My chest tightened.
“Then we go somewhere for a few days.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“I can’t do us.”
I stared at him.
We still had a daughter asleep upstairs.
His daughter.
My daughter.
Emily’s twin.
“You’re leaving?”
He said nothing.
“Carl, our child just died.”
“I know.”
“Lily lost her sister.”
“I know.”
“She needs us.”
His face crumpled.
“I know.”
Three days later, he left anyway.
For years, I hated him for that.
Sometimes quietly.
Sometimes fiercely.
But I never taught Lily to hate him.
When she was six and asked whether Daddy left because of her, I said no.
When she was eight and asked whether he still loved her, I said I believed he did.
When she was eleven and cried after a father-daughter event at school, I held her until she fell asleep.
When she was fourteen and finally stopped asking where he was, that hurt too.
