The deadbolt shifted before I could respond to Tessa, and the front door began to swing inward.
Their mother stepped inside with one hand still on the door, then stopped when she saw me sitting at the kitchen table with Miles against my chest and Tessa beside me.
Her eyes moved to the phone in my hand.
Not my phone.
The other one.
For a second, none of us said anything because there was no useful version of the truth she could invent fast enough to make the room look normal.
She looked at the phone. She looked at Tessa. She looked at Miles. She did not look at me.
“Where did you get that?” she asked.
That was her first question.
Not whether Miles was okay.
Not why Tessa looked exhausted.
Not why I was home hours earlier than expected.
I kept my voice level because my daughter was sitting three feet away, and she had already carried more adult responsibility that afternoon than she ever should have been given.
“Tessa showed me where it was.”
Their mother finally looked at her.
Tessa immediately pulled her hands into the sleeves o
f her shirt.
It was such a small movement, but I knew my daughter well enough to understand it.
She thought she had done something wrong.
I hated that.
Their mother took a step toward us.
“Grant, give me the phone.”
“No.”
She stopped.
I wasn’t shouting.
I wasn’t standing over her.
I simply put the phone on the table beside my hand, screen facing up, and asked the one question that mattered before anything else.
“How long were you gone?”
She glanced toward Tessa again.
“I told her I was going out for a few minutes.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Her shoulders tightened.
“I lost track of time.”
Tessa stared at the tabletop.
Miles made a tired little sound against my shoulder, then settled when I shifted him higher.
I waited.
Their mother exhaled sharply.
“I don’t know. A while.”
