- “Slowly,” she said.
Elias stopped.
The word hit him wrong.
It sounded too close to an order.
- “Excuse me?”
Talia swallowed.
- “I only mean… she’s very sensitive to sudden reactions. If we stay calm, she may stay with us.”
Stay with us.
As if Harper had gone somewhere.
As if Talia knew the route back.
Elias looked at his daughter. His beautiful, silent, unreachable daughter. His child, touching someone else. Trusting someone else. Laughing for someone else.
A terrible jealousy rose in him, so sharp and shameful that he did not recognize it until it had already become anger.
He had missed it.
The first laugh.
The first movement.
The first return.
This stranger had been there.
