It was protecting my child.

Chapter 15 — The Kindergarten

George did not accept it gracefully.

Cornered, exposed, losing, he did the thing that revealed, more than anything else, how little he had ever actually cared about our daughter’s wellbeing: he staged a scene at her kindergarten.

He arrived with Teresa and Fiona and a small crowd of onlookers, and Fiona held up her phone to record, and as I pulled up, George began to shout.

“Tell everyone why you vanish for months!” he yelled, performing for the camera, for the crowd, for the story he was still trying to tell.