“He drove home that morning,” she continued. “Unpacked the truck before you were even awake. Thanked your aunt for staying with you through the night. And then he got down on the floor under that kitchen table and promised a four-year-old girl he would never leave her.”
I pressed a hand over my mouth.
That promise had been the floor my whole life stood on. I’d always believed he made it without a second thought — that he stayed simply because I needed him to. I had never once imagined how close he’d come to walking away, or how hard he’d had to fight himself to turn the truck around.
“He almost left me,” I said, the words barely making it out.
“Yes.”
Caroline didn’t try to cushion it. She let it sit there, true and painful, exactly as it was.
“But he came back,” she said quietly.
