I was supposed to be in Chicago until Friday.
Instead, a canceled meeting put me back home two days early.
I heard Emma before I even reached the kitchen.
"You're lying!"
Then her small voice cracked.
"You hurt me every day!"
I stopped in the hallway.
Claire stood by the counter, wearing the same calm expression everyone always praised her for.
"Emma," she said gently, "stop making up stories."
My daughter flinched.
"She isn't making anything up," I said.
Claire froze.
"Marcus? You're home already?"
I went straight to Emma. She grabbed my sleeve and ducked behind me.
That scared me more than anything Claire could have said.
"What happened to your arm?"
"Nothing," Claire answered before Emma could open her mouth.
I pushed back my daughter's pajama sleeve.
There were dark marks circling her small arm.
Claire stepped closer. "She bruises easily."
"Don't."
Something in my voice made her stop where she stood.
For weeks Emma had changed the moment Claire walked into a room. She stopped talking. She stopped begging me not to travel. She'd even started locking her bedroom door at night.
I'd told myself there had to be another explanation.
Claire's eyes welled up. "You know how hard this has been for her since her mother died."
Emma looked straight at me.
"My mommy didn't die."
Claire's tears stopped instantly.
I looked down at my daughter. "What did you say?"
Emma pointed at Claire.
"She told me Mommy is alive."
Claire went white.
I reached into my coat and set an old photograph on the counter.
"I already knew about the bruises," I said.
Claire stared down at the picture.
Then I flipped it over. A handwritten address was scrawled on the back.
"I also know you visited Emma's mother three weeks before we were all told she died."
Claire grabbed the edge of the counter to steady herself.
"That's not possible."
"No," I said. "What's not possible is what the investigator found yesterday."
Emma squeezed my hand.
Claire whispered, "Marcus, please."
I finally made myself look straight at her.
"He found my first wife. Alive."
The glass slipped out of Claire's hand.
But before it hit the floor, Emma whispered something that made me forget how to breathe.
"She comes here when you're gone."