It was a repair.

He was going in, with the plainest possible words, to fill the crack Beatrice had opened, to restore to his daughter the one certainty every child is owed and that his mother had done her best to steal: that being loved is not a thing you can lose by being brave.

Chapter 19 — The Quiet Before

Nothing else happened that night.

There were no arguments in the hallway, no confrontations, no dramatic scenes before bed.