The school called. “Your daughter hasn’t been pick…

signals a child is about to touch the real thing underneath all the easy answers.

“Mommy?”

“Yes?”

“Was I bad?”

My heart stopped.

“No,” I said. “No, honey. Why would you ever ask that?”

She looked at the ground.

“Because Daddy left. And you didn’t come sooner.”

There it was.

The wound.

The real one.

I knelt in the wood chips so we were eye level.

“Why didn’t you continue reading …