He did not lie to her.

“She probably will,” he said honestly.

“She will probably be very mad.” Chloe took that in, nodding slowly, the way she took in all difficult information, and then she dropped her voice down almost to nothing, and she asked the second question, the real one, the one underneath.

“Will you still be my dad,” she whispered, “if she gets mad at us?”

And for just a fraction of a second, I watched my husband’s steady, reassuring composure crack straight down the middle.