“Penny,” I say softly.
Her bottom lip trembles. “I miss Carly.”
It feels like the room is caving in around me. Fuck them for this, for doing this when she was here, for forcing this on me when I’m barely able to?—
“I don’t understand,” Pen says, her voice squeaky as she rubs at her eyes and takes another step down the stairs.
It hits me, then, that I am a coward.I didn’t give her details, didn’t know how to explain betrayal to a four-year-old. I didn't tell her the truth because I’d have to commit to what the truth is.
I close the distance between me and the stairs and crouch at the bottom, opening my arms. “Come here, bug.”
She comes down slowly, holding the railing, thick tears spilling over smooth, rounded cheeks. I’ve seen her cry so many times in the last few weeks, but that was all controlled, just my words that she heard and the careful ways I phrased things to try to soften the blow.But I don’t know how much she’s overheard. I didn’t curate this for her. And the way she’s looking at me breaks me more effectively than anything Cole or Maddox or Dana has said.
I pull her into my arms and she clutches the front of my shirt with peanut butter fingers.
“Was she gonna move out ‘cause of me?” she whimpers.
“No.” The word comes out too fast. I press a kiss to her hair, letting my lips linger against her skull. “No, baby. Absolutely not. This had nothing to do with you.”
“Then why?”
I can feel the weight of their stares behind me, know they’re watching this, and part of me fucking hates the lot of them for it. This is their fault.But I know what the root cause is, and I’m desperately clawing to keep it locked down.
“She had to leave,” I say, and hate myself for how thin it sounds.
Penelope pulls back enough to look at me, face crumpled. “That’s not enough.”
“I know.” My voice comes out too rough. “I know, bug.”
“Is she mad at us?”
“No.”
“Are you mad at her?”
I swallow.The answer should be easy.It isn’t.“I was,” I say carefully. “I still am, a little. But mostly… mostly I’m sad.”
She wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “Why?”
“Because we had a fight.”
“What kind of fight?”
“A grown-up kind.”
Her face scrunches with the full force of toddler upset and disapproval. “Then fix it. That’s what we do when we fight.”
I stare at my daughter, at the tears on her cheeks, at the stubborn set of her quivering chin, and all at once, I see every awful ripple of what I’ve done— Carly gone, Penelope hurt, me rotting in my office for weeks and struggling to be a good parent for her.
Fix it.
My throat constricts. “I don’t know if I can fix it, Penny.”
She sniffles. “You can try.”
I exhale slowly, watching as another tear slides down her cheek, and I wipe it away with my thumb. “Yeah. Yeah, bug, okay. I can try.”
Her fingers tighten in my shirt. “Today?”
