The room was quiet save for the soft sound of Lilly breathing.
Zara sat at the edge of the bed and watched her daughter sleep really watched her, the way she hadn’t been able to for over a year. The small rise and fall of her chest. The way her fingers curled loosely against the pillow. The white cane propped carefully against the nightstand, a detail so ordinary now to everyone else in this house and so devastating still to her.
How hard was it for you? she thought. How many nights did you cry for me?
She pressed both hands over her face and breathed through it the guilt, the grief, the fury at herself most of all. If I had dealt with Dante sooner. If I had been stronger, faster, smarter he couldn’t have taken this from us.
A knock at the door pulled her back.
She opened it to fin
