“Six months.”
“Maybe.”
“Why don't I know?”
She looked up.
“Because you're never here.”
There.
He had expected it.
Still hurt.
“I travel.”
“Yes.”
“For work.”
“Yes.”
“Work that pays for this house.”
Diane laughed bitterly.
“Careful.”
“What?”
“You’re about to become exactly the husband you insist you're not.”
Michael stared.
“What husband?”
“The one who thinks income means he knows what happens in the house.”
He sat across from her.
“Tell me.”
Diane looked toward the stairs.
“Emma changed after you started traveling more.”
“How?”
“Clingy.”
“Defiant.”
“Every boundary became ‘Daddy lets me.’”
Michael thought.
Sometimes Emma did say that.
He had treated it as normal blended-family testing.
Diane continued:
“She would wait until you called and tell you only the parts of the day she didn't like.”
“I became the bad parent.”
“You became the hero from hotel rooms.”
Michael flinched.
“That is not what I intended.”
“I know.”
“I don't think you do.”
She rubbed her eyes.
“I was handling mornings.”
“School.”
“Homework.”
“Meals.”
“Baths.”
“Lucas’s soccer.”
“Emma’s dance.”
“Your mother calling.”
“Your clients changing flights.”
“Everything.”
Michael listened.
“You would come home Friday with gifts.”
“Take them for pancakes Saturday.”
“Then leave Monday and I got four days of ‘Daddy says.’”
He looked down.
Some of that was true.
Maybe much.
Diane continued:
“I needed rules.”
“Rules are not the problem.”
“No?”
“Humiliation is.”
She stiffened.
“I did not humiliate her.”
“You made a seven-year-old stand beside a table while the rest of the family ate.”
“She chose to disobey.”
Michael stared.
“A seven-year-old cannot consent to being humiliated because she touched bread.”
“You keep using that word.”
“Because that is how she experienced it.”
“You don't know that.”
“She counted the minutes.”
Diane stopped.
That landed.
Michael continued:
“She was crying.”
“Sometimes children cry during consequences.”
“Yes.”
“They also cry when adults are cruel.”
Diane stared.
“You think I'm cruel.”
“I think what I saw was cruel.”
Her eyes filled immediately.
Different.
Specific.
She looked away.
Michael continued:
“That does not mean I think every part of you is cruel.”
“Do not soften it.”
“I am not.”
“Yes.”
She wiped her face.
“You are preparing your balanced little executive summary.”
Michael closed his eyes.
She knew him.
He organized conflict.
Bullet points.
Categories.
Risks.
“I don't want to do that.”
“Then don't.”