“I want this over,” you say.
For the first time, he actually looks startled.
Not because divorce is unimaginable. He has weaponized the word often enough himself during other arguments, tossing it around the room whenever he wanted you scared and apologizing. No, what shocks him is hearing it arrive without tears. Without pleading. Without the frantic softness he has relied on for years.
“That’s dramatic,” he says.
Michael sets his mug down.
“No,” your brother says. “What’s dramatic is putting your hand on my sister and then coming downstairs like it’s Thursday.”
Daniel finally straightens fully in the doorway. “This isn’t between you and me,” he says.
Michael leans back in his chair and looks at him in a way that would have rattled a stronger man. “The second you touched her,” he says, “you invited me in.”
Silence again.
You can hear the heater kick on. A truck passes outside. Somewhere down the block, a garage door rattles open. The world keeps doing ordinary things, which feels offensive and strangely comforting at once. Daniel glances toward the knife block on the counter, then toward the back door, then back to you, and you recognize that look too. He is not afraid of hurting you. He is afraid of losing control of what story gets told about it.
