“I’m a human being! I’m trying to find a balance!” Again, the echo, louder, jumbled, not going away as it bounced off of the walls, building and multiplying.

“She’s almost five. She’ll be in kindergarten this September. In the last four years and seven months, she’s learned to walk, talk, do some chores, and she’s going to go into school knowing some reading, adding, and subtracting. She’s figured all that out. Why can’t you figure out your balance in that same time?”

“Oh fuck you, Lee!”

“Dad?” the voice was small.

Lee turned and stepped aside. The little girl—Everly, she’d crept up, and now she stood in the hallway that went from the front hall toward the bedrooms, fidgeting with her nightgown.

“Oh, hon—” her words were nearly drowned out by the jumble of sound.

“Hey Ever!” Lee’s voice interrupted hers, positive, happy. Were the point of view not from the woman’s perspective, Love Lost’s perspective, then nobody would’ve heard the small, broken sound that escaped her throat. Another person might not have seen how the lens was watery, blurry at the bottom edges with tears.

Lee bent down and swept Ever up in his arms. “What are you doing out of bed?”

“You’re shouting.”

“No I’m not, goblin,” he said. He squeezed the girl in a hug. As he did, he turned, his face where Everly couldn’t see, and gave Love Lost an accusatory, disappointed look.

No I’m not. But she is.

“Where are you going?” Everly asked.

“I have to go away for a bit.”

“You weren’t going to say goodbye?”

“Were you?” Love Lost asked. She didn’t shout, but the words reverberated and echoed down the hallway and through the house as if she’d voiced the words with a megaphone.

Lee’s look was much fiercer, this time.

“It’s not goodbye,” Lee said, the gentle tone disconnected from expression. “I’m going to see you soon. Promise.”

“Wizards can’t lie, Daddy.”

“I know, baby.”

“And we’re wizards. It’s not allowed. It’s a pact of a promise.”

“I know. You and me, we’re wizards and we keep our word.”

Love Lost shook her head, looking away, elsewhere in the living room, down at her hand, which was clenched. When she opened her hand, her palm had a row of half-moon marks in it.

Lee set Everly down. “Go to your mom. Sorry, goblin, but I’ve got to go.”

Everly looked at her mom, hesitated, both hands on her dad’s leg, then obediently crossed the way.

Love Lost knelt on the living room rug, folding her daughter into a hug, her head buried in the little girl’s shoulder and hair.

“I’ll send you the papers by the end of the week,” Lee said.