Instead, I washed it, folded it and returned it to the cupboard.
Months later, on a quiet Sunday morning, I spread it across the table again.
I made coffee in the clay pot and sat by the window as sunlight moved across the kitchen floor.
There was no shouting upstairs.
No footsteps approaching with another demand.
No calculation about which version of my son would enter the room.
I still loved Wyatt.
I hoped the counseling would help him become someone who could hear no without turning it into war.
I hoped there would come a day when we could sit across from each other without fear, excuses or unpaid emotional debts between us.
But hope was no longer a key to my front door.
Love did not require access.
Motherhood did not require surrender.
The house did not feel empty that morning.
For the first time in years, it felt like mine.
