I almost laughed, but the sound never made it past my throat.
My father turned to me. For one moment, the ice in his expression cracked. He looked at my hospital scrubs, the dried tear tracks on my face, the bloodless exhaustion in my eyes. Then his gaze dropped to my hands, still trembling from the chest compressions I had performed on my own child.
“My Claire,” he whispered.
That broke me more than Garrett’s lies ever could.
Because before I was Ethan’s mother, before I was Garrett’s wife, before I became the woman sitting outside a hospital room with the worst news a human heart could hold, I had been my father’s little girl.
He reached for me, and I stood because my body obeyed before my mind understood.
The second his arms closed around me, I folded.
Not gracefully.
Not quietly.
I collapsed against his chest with a sound that did not feel human. It came from somewhere older than language, a place inside me that had been ripped open when Ethan’s heart stopped beating.
“He asked for him,” I sobbed. “Dad, he kept asking for Garrett.”
My father’s arms tightened.
Behind him, Garrett made a choking noise.
“Claire, please—”
My father did not turn around.
“Do not speak.”
Three words.
Soft.
