You Are My Daughter

I had been managing the situation, keeping it contained, keeping it quiet, keeping it from spilling over into my own life, and I had been calling that protection because the truth was too uncomfortable to look at.

Real protection would have cost me something.

Real protection would have looked like a scene, like a confrontation, like the willingness to be the difficult one.

I had never once been willing to be the difficult one.

And my daughter had paid for my comfort, holiday after holiday, in a currency of small wounds.

I leaned toward Caleb, and I whispered, my voice shaking.

“Caleb.