She looked up, her face a mask of absolute horror. “Rowan, please. I made a mistake. Are you taking my babies away forever?”
“You did that yourself,” I turned on my heel.
“Rowan, wait!” she pleaded. “How are they? Please, just tell me how they are!”
I paused at the door, glancing back over my shoulder. “Elsie will physically recover. But Micah… I don’t know if he’ll ever trust anyone again.”
I walked out, leaving her sobbing in the sterile room. I thought I had won. I thought cutting her out would fix the infection in our family.
I couldn’t have been more wrong.
That first week back at my house was a descent into psychological hell. Micah couldn’t sleep. He shadowed Elsie so obsessively that if she closed the bathroom door, he would bang on it until his hands bled, terrified she was dying inside. I burned dinners. I shrank their clothes. I existed on three hours of sleep a night.
On the fourth night, at 2:00 AM, a blood-curdling scream ripped through the drywall. I bolted out of bed, grabbing a heavy brass lamp, convinced someone was breaking in. I sprinted into Micah’s room.
He was thrashing in his sheets, eyes wide open but completely unseeing. “Wake up, Elsie! Wake up, please!” he shrieked, clawing at his own face.
