I felt like I couldn’t breathe, but I didn’t let myself fall.
Not there.
Not facing Emma.
Not in front of my dead children.
Not in front of the woman who wanted to see me broken even after taking away what I loved most.
The police arrived before Miriam completely broke down, and how lucky, because there was something in her eyes that was no longer just fury.
It was disappointment at not having completed his work.
That’s the part I struggled the most to accept for months: not only did he do something awful, he also genuinely believed he was fixing the world.
The officers separated Emma from the scene with a paramedic and they sat me down because the blood from my forehead was still running down my temple.
Trevor wanted to approach.
I didn’t let him.
Not yet.
He still hadn’t decided whether his failure that morning was cowardice, complicity, or such a rotten mixture of both that it deserved its own name.
Emma was interviewed with an almost unreal delicacy given the circumstances, sitting in a side room with juice, tissues and a white blanket.
I could see her through the glass, so small, so obedient in her pain, and every time I bent my head to answer something I felt my chest open up again.
Children shouldn’t learn that kind of narrative precision before they learn to tie their shoes properly.
Meanwhile, the police began asking questions in the living room.
What a night.
What a house.
Who prepared the baby bottles?
