“No,” I said.

A single syllable, but it felt like kicking down a steel door.

“No?” he echoed, genuinely shocked.

“No. I won’t monitor my tone while you insult my wife and my child. I shrank myself for decades so you could feel towering and respected. I let you call your manipulation ‘wisdom.’

That contract expired the second you told me Lily would never be yours.”

My father breathed in ragged, furious hitches. My mother’s faint, tearful voice pleaded in the background: “Robert, please, stop.”