It had been dying for a long time before that, dying slowly of the same poison that had been in the house from the start — the moment Arthur decided, somewhere deep in himself, that four daughters were simply not enough to satisfy whatever his mother had trained him to need.

After Maya was born, he began coming home late.

He changed the passcode on his phone.

He started spending nights away, always under the cover of corporate travel.

And then one evening a notification lit up his screen where I could see it: Don’t you want to see your son’s face?

Months later, he walked into our living room and set down a paternity report as though it were a trophy.