“I am going to check on her before I leave for the district office,” I said, pushing my chair back from the table.
He did not look up at me as I left the kitchen, but I heard him tapping his brass ring against the table again, a steady, slow rhythm like a second clock.
In the hallway upstairs, the air was cooler, carrying the faint scent of old floor wax and the wool blankets we had pulled out of storage.
Emma’s bedroom door was cracked open, showing a thin slice of the blue rug that still bore the dark, faded coffee stain from three summers ago.
She was sitting on the edge of her unmade bed, her thin fingers tugging at the hem of an oversized gray t-shirt that reached past her knees.
“Good morning, sweetheart,” I said, stepping inside and taking the plastic hairbrush from her small white nightstand.
She did not look at my face; her eyes remained fixed on her bare feet as I began to run the brush through her fine, light brown hair.
