I did it because Chloe was mine too.

Because in the four seconds I had, some part of me that had bought a coat for a cold fifteen-year-old could not stand in a doorway and let a sixty-seven-year-old woman look at her.

I have never fully forgiven myself for that impulse, and I have also stopped trying to.

Both things happened.

I was protecting Wendy’s heart and I was, in the same motion, for the last time in my life, protecting Chloe.

An hour later I would stop.