Because it meant Eric had not fallen into this accidentally.
He had constructed it.
Maybe not literally, maybe not with his own hands, but with decisions. With permission. With repeated choice. With every day he came to breakfast and watched our son pour cereal over the floor and never once decided that hiding criminals beneath his child’s bedroom was a line he could not cross.
Morning came gray and thin through hotel curtains. I had not really slept. By seven, my phone was vibrating nonstop. Unknown numbers. My mother. Eric’s coworkers. Melissa’s name flashing once from a blocked ID before disappearing. Texts from neighbors. A message from a local reporter asking for comment. I turned the phone face down and focused on getting Noah dressed.
Children have a terrible and miraculous way of continuing to need ordinary things in the middle of catastrophe. He wanted the blue socks, not the green ones. He wanted pancakes, not cereal. He wanted to know if his dinosaur had slept okay. The baby needed a diaper change. Someone had to choose clothes, wipe faces, find juice, carry bags.
So I did those things.
