“No.”

She turned her face into the pillow. For a moment I thought she was crying. Then I realized she was breathing. Long, broken breaths. The kind a person takes when survival finally catches up with them.

I wanted to ask why she hadn’t told me sooner. I wanted to ask how long. I wanted to ask what I had missed, what I had excused, what signs I had stepped around because Daniel smiled and called me sir.

I asked none of it.

A father’s guilt is not a bandage. It does not belong on the wound while the child is still bleeding.

So I said the only useful thing I had. “You did exactly right.”

Emily closed her eyes. “He said nobody would believe me.”

I thought of Daniel in my kitchen. Daniel at my table. Daniel with my ladder. Daniel telling me he would take care of her.

I moved my chair closer. “He was wrong.”