"Abbi," I yelled, "how old is she? How fecking old is she?!"
I dragged my eyes away from the little girl with green eyes and fixed my furious gaze on Abbi. Her arms were crossed over her chest, shaking as tears and guilt pooled in her eyes.
The image of her like that was more powerful an answer than any word she could have uttered.
I fled.
I hurried across the living room, avoided the face of the little girl with green eyes, and slipped out into the night, slamming the door shut behind me. I just started walking. And when walking wasn't enough, I started running.
I had no idea where.
Just far.
As far as I could would have to do.
Abbi
"Zara, go to your room."
My voice sounded distant to my own ears, as if I was only hearing the echo of my words from the bottom of a very deep, very dark, very narrow well.
I was still staring at the place he had been before he’d stormed out and slammed the door like a full stop on our lives. I was still staring at the place he had been when he left my bedroom, when he saw my daughter, when my daughter saw him.
"Zara, go to your room," I repeated when I noticed my daughter was there beside me, also staring at the place he’d been, unblinking.
Zara turned her head toward me with a million questions on her lips. "Mom—"
"Now, Zara," I snapped. "Go to your room now."
Zara seemed about to protest again, but Sandra placed her hands on her narrow, thin shoulders and leaned down to say gently, "Honey, go on to your room, okay? Your mom will be there in a minute."
Sandra's kind voice managed to sting my heart despite it being completely and utterly numb. I wasn't sure which was worse: feeling nothing or feeling that kind of pain. I watched Zara pad quietly to her room, dragging her overnight bag on the floor behind her and glancing back at me till she disappeared down the hall.
When she was out of sight, I covered my face and slid down the wall to sink into a quivering ball on the floor. I rocked back and forth, still in disbelief over what had happened.
"Why is she home?" I wailed into my hands. "Sandra, why the fuck is Zara home?"
Sandra sank to the floor next to me with a sigh. "She wanted to come home," she explained softly. "You know she struggles to feel comfortable with the other girls. She…she just wanted to come home."
I groaned and pressed my palms harder against my eyes as if that might erase the look on Michael's face when he saw her.
"Why didn't she call me?" I asked. "I could have— I wouldn't have—"
Whatever I was trying to say dissolved into frustrated moans. This was my worst nightmare. This was exactly what I vowed would never happen. I never wanted Zara to meet Michael. But now Zara's only memory of her father would be of him leaving, running away.
"Fuck," I said through gritted teeth, my jaw clenched tight. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!"
I tried to brush off Sandra's first attempt at soothing me, but she persisted and I let her rest a solid hand on my arm.
"Zara tried calling you first, Abbi," she said. "You must not have heard it at the party."
"No," I insisted, shaking my head. "That's impossible."
I uncovered my eyes and found my clutch discarded in the entryway next to me. With shaking fingers, I opened it to retrieve my cell phone.
"If my daughter was trying to reach me, if she needed me, I would have…"
I couldn't continue, because there on my screen were notifications for no less than eleven missed calls from Z. Guilt wrapped its ugly claws around my heart and squeezed till I was gasping for air. I put Michael before my own daughter. I put a weekend fling nine years ago over the love of my life.
No, no.
This had nothing to do with Michael.
I put myself before Zara. I put my needs, my wants, my desires over hers. The truth was plain and simple and so was the knife that twisted in my heart; the pain was complicated, nuanced, hard to unravel. But it was still pain, plain and simple.
Sandra ran her hand in calming circles over my back till I managed to catch some of my breath. "Abbi, you need to go talk to her."
I turned my face toward her, resting a tear-stained cheek on my knee. "Do you think she put it together?" I asked. "Do you think she knows that he's…that he's her…"
I couldn't even bring myself to say it aloud. Sandra smiled sympathetically at me and I knew. Of course I knew. And so did she.
"Just be honest with her," Sandra said, lifting my trembling chin. "Honesty, Abbi. No matter how ugly or complicated or difficult."
She pulled me into her arms and held me for a moment.
"Okay," I whispered, dragging the back of my hand across my nose and sniffling. I sat up and sucked in a deep breath.
"Okay?" Sandra asked, eyes watching me.
I nodded. "Yeah."
I stood and Sandra stood with me. I wiped the tears from my cheeks and focused my determined gaze on the hallway leading toward Zara's bedroom. I took one more deep breath and managed to keep it mostly steady as I exhaled. I went to move forward, but Sandra stopped me briefly with a hand on my arm.
"Honesty," she said
