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I stare at her, waiting. "If I'd called you, you'd have dropped everything and come for me."

"Of course I would've."

A tired smile flickers across her face before it fades again. "I know you would've."

She wipes at her cheeks with the sleeve of her hoodie and finally looks at me.

"Then, a week later, you'd have watched me walk straight back into that house."

The image settles hard in my stomach.

"I couldn't ask you to carry that," she says softly. "I already hated myself for going back. I couldn't bear watching you hate him while I still couldn't leave." Tears gather in her eyes again. "I spent years being embarrassed. Years making excuses. Years convincing myself I could fix it if I just tried harder." Her gaze drops briefly before finding mine again. "You don't get to carry that too."

Then Maggie swallows hard. "Law?"

The shift in her expression tells me what's coming before she says it.

Lucy.

Everything circles back to Lucy.

"How is she?"

Her composure finally cracks.

I pull out my phone and open my photos.

Hundreds of them fill the screen.

Lucy at school pickup, proudly holding a construction paper crown she'd made crooked on purpose because she thought it was funnier that way. Lucy covered in flour while helping me bake cookies. Lucy sitting beside a bonfire wrapped in a dinosaur blanket she'd refused to retire despite being far too old for it by her own standards.

I scroll through picture after picture.

Ashby teaching her campfire songs and getting corrected on half the lyrics. Briggs helping her build the world's most structurally questionable s'more. Torin pretending to lose an argument because she'd arrived with colorful crayoned charts.

Maggie starts crying before I reach the fourth photo. "My baby."

The words break apart in her throat.

I hand her the phone. "She's doing fine. I’ve been looking after her the whole time."

Maggie stares at the screen as if she's afraid the images might disappear.

"She misses you."

A tear slips down her cheek. "I miss her too."

The understatement burns.

Months apart have carved a wound through both of them.

"She talks about you all the time," I say. "Mostly when she's trying to negotiate her way out of bedtime. Apparently, you've made her a legendary legal scholar."

A watery laugh escapes Maggie. "That sounds right."

"Last week she informed Briggs that Mommy says bedtime is a social construct."

Maggie's hand flies to her mouth. "Oh no."