Not the cruelty — the content. The earring.

The girls checking with her first. Those quiet ones are the dangerous ones. He had been fed, one careful spoonful at a time, the exact narrative he would need in order to sign off on the removal of the only stable adult in his daughters’ lives.

And he had nearly signed.

He had come within a day of it.

He had actually drafted, in his head, on a plane the previous week, the sentence he would use: Rosamund, this isn’t about anything you’ve done wrong, but we’re restructuring the household.

He put his hand over his mouth.