Daniel stared at his phone, Karen’s text message still glowing on the screen: *We need to talk. Can you come over after Lindy goes to bed?*
He’d known this conversation was coming for weeks. The forced smiles during Lindy’s weekend visits, the careful politeness that had replaced their once-easy communication, the way their conversations had gradually shifted from planning a future together to simply coordinating schedules around their daughter.
Twenty minutes later, he sat across from Karen in her living room, the same couch where they’d had so many conversations about trying again, about building something real this time, about becoming the family they’d always meant to be.
“This isn’t working,” Karen said without preamble, her hands folded in her lap like she was delivering a diagnos
