There is only a mother who has waited far too long, keeping her daughter’s hands gently away, promising her — late, but not, thank God, too late — that she will never have to do that again.

And I waited.

I waited for Zachary to look at his four-year-old daughter shaking on the kitchen floor and to cross the room and gather her up and ask if she was all right.

I waited for the smallest flicker of a father in him.

Instead he looked at us with plain annoyance.

“That’s what happens when you spoil her.

She’s learned she can manipulate us with tears.”