Eric hovered in the hallway. “Claire, please. Let’s talk.”
I turned toward him. “You had your chance in the car.”
His voice lowered. “I said I was sorry.”
“No,” I said. “You said you were stressed.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “Fine. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have left you there. But calling the police? Bringing lawyers into this? Trying to keep me from my own child?”
There it was again. In Eric’s world, accountability was always an attack.
“I’m not keeping you from your child,” I said. “I’m protecting myself while I carry this child.”
“That’s dramatic.”
I actually smiled, though nothing was funny. Once you see the pattern clearly, it loses some of its power. “You called me dramatic while I was nearly going into early labor.”
He opened his mouth and then closed it.
For once, silence served me instead of him.
We packed for nearly an hour—clothes, documents, medications, baby records, the portable bassinet my mother had bought, and the box where I kept cards from my late father. The deputy stayed near the doorway, quiet but present. Eric felt it too. There would be no cornering me in the kitchen, no soft threats, no emotional traps.
When we were almost finished, he tried one last time.
