He was a distracted, busy, ordinary father with a plane to catch and a presentation occupying his mind. When Lily first ran toward him and begged him not to leave, his automatic adult instinct had been to smile, reassure her, gently remove her arms, and go.
That instinct was not cruel.
It was simply what years of busy mornings trained people to do: process a child’s clinginess as a small obstacle between themselves and the door, something to soothe rather than a warning to investigate.
If Lily had not looked toward the kitchen, if at six years old she had not thought to check whether someone was listening, Marcus might easily have followed his own instinct all the way to the airport.
Since then, he had often thought about the children whose parents never happen to notice that glance, who reassure them and continue out the door without ever understanding what their child was trying to say.
