Chapter 1: Ocean Words and Quiet Warnings

It was an ordinary Thursday—one of those afternoons where the world feels soft around the edges. The kind of day when nothing extraordinary should happen. Tess, my four-year-old daughter, had just finished preschool. Her pink sneakers were kicked off in the backseat, her hair half-undone from the pigtails I’d carefully fixed that morning. A single fruit snack clung stubbornly to her leggings, and she hummed quietly to herself as we drove through golden sunlight toward home.

The roads were calm. The air was warm. My car smelled like apple juice and forgotten crayons.

And then she said it.

“Mommy,” Tess asked dreamily, gazing out the window like she was watching something beyond the trees, “will you cry when I go to the ocean with Dad and my other mom?”

The question landed in my chest like a stone thrown into still water—silent at first, then rippling through everything.

I kept both hands on the steering wheel, my knuckles going white.

“Your… other mom?” I repeated carefully, not wanting to sound alarmed.

“Uh-huh,” she said casually, as if she’d just asked me what was for dinner. “Mom Lizzie says you’re the evil one. She’s the kind mom. And soon, we’re going to the ocean with Daddy.”

I didn’t swerve, but everything inside me did.
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