“And it didn’t occur to you to call me and let me know what was going on?” Sara said.

“Steve asked me not to.”

“And you thought that was okay?” The tone and volume of her voice went up with her blood pressure. “To let me go out of my mind with worry. To upset Wendy to the point that she’s sick to her stomach. You didn’t see anything wrong with that?”

“I don’t know what to say, Sara. I thought Steve would call you himself.”

“You didn’t think that,” she said bitterly. “You didn’t think about Wendy or me. Just like he didn’t think about Wendy or me. The two of you can rot in hell together for all I care!”

She slammed the receiver down and burst into tears, beyond the end of her rope. Wendy bolted from the room and upstairs.

That was it, Sara realized as the tears subsided, the last straw. She was done.

She dried her eyes and went outside as the deputy came up the sidewalk looking uncomfortable.

Sara held a hand up. “I know. I just spoke to my husband’s partner.”

“I’m sorry, ma’am,” the deputy said.

“You don’t have anything to be sorry for. Thank you for your time.”

The adrenaline drained down through her, taking her energy with it as she went back to the house. She felt like she was eighty years old as she climbed the stairs to go to her daughter’s room.

Wendy was busy putting her dolls into a garbage bag while tears streamed down her cheeks.

“Sweetheart, what are you doing?”

Wendy didn’t look up. “I’m giving them away.”

“Why?”

“Because they’re stupid,” she said angrily. “I’m too old to play with stupid toys for little kids.”

Sara’s heart broke all over again. Wendy was throwing away her childhood. She felt hurt and angry. No one seemed to be taking her feelings—the feelings of a child—into consideration. Maybe if she stopped being a child ...

“Don’t,” Sara said softly.

She knelt down by her daughter and took a baby doll gently from her hand. She remembered the Christmas she and Steve had given that doll to Wendy. She had been five and covered in chicken pox. Sara had put red dots all over the doll so Wendy wouldn’t feel so alone, sequestered away from her cousins for the holiday, missing out on all the fun. She and her new baby had chicken pox together, and Steve had played doctor and Sara had played nurse, the two of them devoted to their child, the three of them a wonderful family.

She looked down at Wendy and touched her face, and said, “Do you know how much I love you?”