“I’m not free,” he said.
“No.”
“But they have to listen now.”
“Yes.”
He covered his face.
“They have to listen.”
That afternoon, Chloe was told too.
Denise explained it carefully, using words an eight-year-old could hold.
“The judge is going to look at everything again,” she said. “Not just the things people looked at before.”
Chloe sat at the kitchen table in Denise’s small apartment, where she had been staying temporarily during the chaos. A bowl of soup steamed in front of her, untouched.
“So Daddy might come home?”
“He might.”
“When?”
“I don’t know.”
Chloe nodded, absorbing the answer. She had become familiar with “I don’t know.” Adults used it when the truth was too large or too unfinished. But this time, “I don’t know” did not feel like a locked door.
It felt like a door with light under it.
“Can we make him a room?” she asked.
