I was not going to let Sofia learn, by watching me, that love means accepting the same wound over and over as long as the apology is tearful enough.

I handed her a folder — temporary custody filings and separation papers, filed electronically an hour before.

“You’ll talk to me through my attorney,” I said, and I stepped back inside and locked the door, and through it I could hear her calling all three of our names.

Chapter 16 — The Fallout

The reckoning over the next six months was thorough, and I want to be clear that I did not engineer most of it.

I stopped holding them up, stepped back, and let what they’d built fall under its own weight.