My phone lit up on the nightstand.
A text from Ruth: *Please let me explain.
Please.*
I turned it face-down.
But I didn’t sleep.
Because underneath everything — the betrayal, the exhaustion, the grief that had been going on for months and showed no sign of stopping — there was one thought I couldn’t quiet.
*He has no one else.*
I called the dental practice on a Tuesday morning, three days after the hospital.
I had rehearsed what I would say.
“I don’t know what I thought.”
“Can I ask what Daniel knows?”
“He knows his father was sick and that he passed away.
He doesn’t know much more than that.
He’s five.
I’ve been trying to figure out what to tell him.”
I looked out the window at the grey November garden.
The roses Mark had planted along the fence were bare now, just brown canes and thorns.
