Small.
Silent.
Gone again.
The truth began to settle inside him with a weight so unbearable he almost could not stand.
He had not saved her.
He had not protected her.
He had taken the first fragile miracle his daughter had been given and crushed it with both hands.
He moved toward the stairs.
Margaret’s voice stopped him.
- “Where are you going?”
Elias grabbed his coat from the banister.
His hands were shaking.
- “To find her.”
He ran down the stairs, through the foyer, and out into the snow without gloves, without a scarf, without any of the careful dignity he had spent his life wearing like armor.
The cold hit him.
He barely felt it.
The street was blurred white and gray. Cars moved slowly along the curb. A delivery truck blocked part of the road. Holiday lights flickered behind windows.
Talia was not on the steps.
Not at the gate.
Not at the corner.
Panic rose so fast he almost choked.
He pulled out his phone and called the staffing agency.
No answer.
He called again.
Then he remembered the emergency contact sheet Margaret kept in the kitchen drawer.
He sprinted back inside, tore through the drawer, found the file, and there it was.
Talia Brooks.
A phone number.
An address in Roxbury.
He dialed.
It rang.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Voicemail.
He hung up and called again.
Voicemail.
His fingers trembled as he typed.
“I was wrong.”
He deleted it.
Too small.
Too clean.
He tried again.
“Please come back.”
Deleted.
His breath came hard.
Finally, he wrote the only truth that mattered.
“She needs you. I need you. Please come back.”
