David POV
I don’t move away from the window for a long time after Ella’s car disappears down the road. The gravel settles slowly in her wake, the faint dust lingering in the air before it finally drifts back down. It leaves the stretch of driveway empty again.
It should feel like every other morning, quiet and predictable, but it doesn’t. The stillness presses in differently now that something has shifted everything we’ve spent years trying to pretend was normal.
“She knows something’s wrong.”
Katherine’s voice carries softly from behind me, but it doesn’t startle me. There’s too much weight in the moment for that, too much already settling into place.
“I know,” I answer, my gaze still fixed on the road long after there’s nothing left to see.
I can feel her move closer, the subtle sh
