“Oh,” Daisy said softly as she saw Michelle step out of the room with her luggage in hand. “You’re really going.”
The word really landed harder than any accusation.
Michelle knelt instinctively, bringing herself to Daisy’s level. “Hey,” she said gently. “Come here.”
Daisy didn’t move. Her gaze drifted past Michelle, to the suitcase, to the coat over her arm, to the finality of it all.
“You’re leaving because of mummy, aren’t you?” Daisy asked.
Michelle swallowed.
“No, sweetheart,” she said carefully. “I’m leaving because it's time for me to leave.”
Daisy’s lip trembled. “Daddy didn’t want you to go.”
“I know.”
“Then why won’t you stay?”
That question, simple, honest, devastating, split straight through Michelle’s carefully held composure.
Because I don’t belong, she thought.
Be
