Half sob. Half breath.
“Dad?”
Thomas Caldwell stepped into the doorway.
He looked first at me, then at Clara, and grief rearranged his face.
“My girls,” he whispered.
Clara moved before I did.
She crossed the distance and struck his chest once with both palms—not hard enough to hurt, but hard enough to carry ten years of birthdays, holidays, hospital rooms, and unanswered prayers.
“How could you?” she cried.
He did not defend himself.
He only stood there and took it.
Clara hit his chest again, then collapsed against him.
He wrapped his arms around her, and the sound that left him was the sound of a man breaking quietly.
“I’m sorry,” he said over and over. “I’m so sorry. I thought I was protecting you. I was wrong. I was so wrong.”
