The thing people don’t tell you about betrayal is how ordinary it looks at first.
It doesn’t arrive with thunder. It arrives with a phone buzzing on a kitchen counter while you’re scraping dried peanut butter off a plate, knees aching, hair pulled up in the same tired knot you’ve worn for three days because six children don’t care if your ends are split—they care if there’s milk, and clean socks, and someone who will still be there in the morning.
That night was like that. Quiet, late, almost peaceful in the way a house gets when you’ve finally won the bedtime battle.
Three last requests for water.
An emergency sock change.
My youngest, Rose, whispering the same question she always asked when the lights went out: