That was the part he hated most. Not losing control of the narrative.
Being seen clearly, finally, by everyone at once.
But the hardest part of all of it wasn’t Derek. It was Claire.
She had raised Owen for eight years. She knew which foods he refused to touch. She knew what scared him at night and what made him laugh until he couldn’t breathe. She knew exactly how he liked his sandwiches cut and which stuffed animal he reached for when he had a fever.
I had carried him. I had given birth to him. And I had spent eight years mourning a child who had been alive the entire time, thirty minutes away.
Both of those things were true at once. One didn’t cancel the other out.
Eventually Claire and I sat down alone, just the two of us, in my kitchen with the lights low.
