I paused.
“And without you.”
He nodded slowly.
He didn’t argue again.
That mattered.
He didn’t remind me of everything he had done for us.
He didn’t ask me to repay some emotional debt.
He didn’t threaten my career.
Instead, he arranged a generous severance package, wrote me a recommendation letter strong enough to make me cry, and promised that if I ever needed professional references, he would answer the phone.
Nothing more.
For once, he allowed me to leave without trying to rescue me.
I drove home with the windows down.
I had no new job.
No backup plan.
No person waiting to solve the next emergency.
For the first time since Ethan became sick, I had absolutely no idea what came next.
It terrified me.
But underneath the fear was something else.
Relief.
When I pulled into my driveway, Jenna was sitting on the porch with Lily.
Lily had apparently refused to nap properly because half her hair was flattened while the other half stood straight up.
Her stuffed rabbit was tucked beneath her arm.
She saw me and ran down the steps.
“Mommy!”
I caught her.
And suddenly, after holding myself together for more than a year, I started crying.
Not quiet funeral tears.
Not the kind I wiped away in bathrooms so Lily wouldn’t see.
I sobbed.
Right there in my driveway.
Lily wrapped her tiny arms around my neck.
“I’m sorry, Mommy.”
