He was quiet for a moment, and then he said the last of it, the part that seemed to cost him the most.

“I used to tell myself a story where I was the reasonable one. Where Claire had gotten difficult and controlling and I was just protecting my interests, doing what any smart person would do. I’m good at telling myself stories — it’s half of what I do for a living. I built one so airtight I believed it right up until I was sitting in my car on that street watching her carry Zoe up those stairs.” He looked at the floor.

“You can’t argue with a thing you see with your own eyes. That’s the one kind of evidence I never learned how to beat.”

The room was quiet. Owen said nothing at all, but Claire saw him watching his father with an expression she couldn’t fully read — not softening, exactly, but recalculating, the way he looked at a board when the position had changed.

“Understanding what you broke,” Claire said, not unkindly but not softly either, “is not the same as fixing it.”

“I know,” Jason said.