His voice cracked. “And he’s just… there.”
My anger faded, but the hurt remained.
Travis shifted beside the doorway.
“She talks about you the whole walk,” he said. “What you taught her. What you packed in her lunch. Last Thursday,
she wished you were outside school because she wanted to show you some stupid leaf she’d found.”
“It wasn’t stupid,” Emma called from the hallway.
We froze.
She stood there in her pajamas.
Ryan’s face crumpled. He moved toward her but stopped several feet away.
“Em. I’m sorry. You told me the truth, and I should have listened.”
Emma didn’t run into his arms.
She simply nodded.
It hurt him. I think it needed to.
An apology was only the beginning.
I looked at Ryan. “And this doesn’t happen again. You don’t change Emma’s arrangements behind my back, and you don’t keep questioning her until she gives you the answer you want. If you’re worried, you come to me — not our seven-year-old.”
