her lap.
“After the second loss, she said you both stopped speaking the same language. She said you looked at her like she was a room you couldn’t bear to enter.”
I closed my eyes.
“That’s what it felt like,” I admitted. “Not because I didn’t love her. Because I didn’t know how to walk into that room without falling apart.”
Linda’s face softened just slightly.
“Love that cannot enter pain becomes very lonely, Ethan.”
I opened my eyes.
There was no accusation in her voice now.
Only grief.
“I know,” I said.
“Do you love her?”
The question was simple.
The answer was not.
Because loving Sophie had never stopped.
It had only become tangled in fear, failure, resentment, helplessness, and shame.
“Yes,” I said.
Linda studied me.
“Then don’t confuse loving her with needing her to make you feel forgiven.”
I looked away.
“You are not the center
