I narrowed my eyes slightly.
“Yes. I expected that part.”
Eli dropped onto the couch like his bones had suddenly become optional.
“He explained everything,” he added.
My chest tightened slightly at that word.
Everything is never just everything.
It is always everything filtered through perspective.
Through guilt.
Through revision.
Through selective memory.
I kept my voice steady.
“And?”
Ava hesitated for a moment before speaking again.
“He said he was very stupid.”
I blinked once.
Then twice.
–
Neutri
…He said that?”
Enodded immediately, as if it was the most normal conclusion in the world.
“Yes. His words. Not ours.’
I pressed my lips together to stop the reaction I felt building.
Of course he said that.
Of course he would use that exact word in front of them.
my concept.
Children would now casually describe their father’s emotional history as stupidity like it was a math
I inhaled slowly.
“And how do you two feel about that?” I asked.
Silence.
The kind that meant thinking was happening too loudly to verbalize.
Ava sat down properly now, folding her legs neatly under her.
“I think…” she started slowly, “he was honest.”
That word again.
Honest.
Eli shrugged.
“He was confused a lot.”


VERIFYCAPTCHA_LABEL
Comments
The readers' comments on the novel: Too Late To Love Me I Already Left With His Twins (Lydia and Dave)