“Nathan told us his parents only wanted Ava there because of the custody agreement,” I said, repeating the words he had used every June for eleven years.
“He said Aurora only dropped her off at the driveway,” Sophie said, her short sentence landing like a stone in the quiet kitchen.
She looked up at me, her eyes dark and steady, carrying a weight that no fifteen-year-old should have to hold.
“I just want to know what Caleb and I did wrong,” she said.
The words stayed in the room, unanswered, as she picked up her charcoal pencil and went back to drawing.
I walked out to the back porch, the wooden boards creaking under my sneakers as I stepped into the humid evening air.
The yard was overgrown at the edges, the hydrangeas drooping from the morning rain.
I sat on the wicker bench and opened the small plastic storage box where I kept our seasonal decorations and old correspondence.
Near the bottom, tucked between a recipe booklet and a program from a school play, was a postcard from Linda, Nathan’s mother.
