With every photo, Marcus became more awake.
“Stop,” he said. “You’re making this look worse than it is.”
I looked at him.
“It is worse than it looks.”
Diane threw back the sheet and stood, clutching it around her body. “You always do this. You always make yourself the victim.”
I laughed then. A small, sharp sound that did not feel like mine.
“You slept with my husband while my son tried not to freeze.”
“He is Marcus’s son too,” she shot back.
“No,” I said. “Tonight, he was no one’s son but mine.”
Marcus flinched.
Good.
From Noah’s bedroom, a tiny voice called, “Mommy?”
Everything in me moved at once. I turned and walked out of that room without another word.
Noah was sitting up in bed, Captain pressed under his chin. His eyes were huge in the green night-light glow.
“Are you mad?” he whispered.
I crossed the room and sat beside him.
“Not at you, baby. Never at you.”
He nodded, but his lower lip trembled. “Aunt Diane said I was being bad.”
My body went completely still.
Marcus appeared in the doorway behind me, shirtless, pale. “Noah—”
I lifted one hand without looking at him. “Do not speak.”
Noah looked past me and saw his father. He shrank against the headboard.
The movement was small. Barely anything.
But I saw it.
And Marcus saw me see it.
I kept my voice soft. “What did Aunt Diane say, sweetheart?”
Noah twisted Captain’s ear in his fist. “She said Daddy needed grown-up time. She said I couldn’t keep knocking. She said if I was cold, I should sleep in the kitchen because babies cry in kitchens.”
I closed my eyes for one second.
One second was all I allowed myself.
“Did Daddy hear her say that?”
Noah looked at Marcus again.
Marcus looked down at the floor.
Noah whispered, “Daddy said don’t make her mad.”
There are sounds the body makes when the soul cracks. Not loud sounds. Not dramatic ones. A breath catching. A heartbeat stumbling. A tiny animal noise trapped behind the ribs.