He turned his back on his wife, and on his newborn daughter, and on me, and he walked straight through the door and was gone.

I sat there, still hooked to the monitors, my body wrung out from bringing this child into the world, trying to hold a newborn and reach for Lauren at the same time as she began, beside me, to come apart completely.

Chapter 7 — The Anger

I have been angry in my life.

I had never, before that day, been angry the way I was angry at my brother.

For the next three days, the anger only grew, feeding on itself, because it had nowhere to go.