"Smaller. Clearer. Terrified of me in a way that would have felt like winning fifteen years ago and just feels sad now." Aaliyah walked into the family room and sat on the sofa where he had been sitting the afternoon everything cracked, the navy polo afternoon, the fancy little man afternoon. "She asked if there was a version of the next few years where she gets to be a grandmother in the open."
Marcus sat in the armchair across from her. He did not reach for her. She was grateful for that, and also lonely for it, which seemed to be the shape of everything lately.
"What did you say?"
"I said I needed time." She looked at her hands. "I also need something from you, and I need you to hear it without defending yourself for at least sixty seconds."
"All right."
"You broke us," she said. "Not because you loved my mother enough to give her a door. I can almost understand that, knowing what happened to yours. You broke us because you decided my anger was a problem to route around instead of a reality to face. You treated my history with her like an obstacle in a floor plan. You are an architect, Marcus. You know what happens when you ignore a load-bearing wall."
He sat with it. She watched him sit with it. The sixty seconds passed, and another thirty, and when he spoke his voice was scraped raw.