Chapter 15 - The Fracture
I told him everything.
I didn't omit a single detail.
I told him about the dust in the basement, the open windows, the argument over the inhaler.
I told him about putting the red plastic canister on top of the refrigerator.
I told him about putting Leo out on the porch in the hundred-degree heat.
And I told him about turning up the volume on the television while our son begged through the brass mail slot.
As I spoke, the color drained entirely from David's face.
His jaw went slack, his eyes widening in horror as the reality of my words settled over him.
When I finished, the room went completely silent, save for the mechanical hiss of the ventilator.
David stared at me as if I were a stranger, a monster standing in the skin of his wife.
"You put him outside?" he whispered, his voice shaking with a terrifying, quiet fury.
"In the heat? Without his medicine?"
"I thought he was faking it, David!" I sobbed, reaching out toward him.
"You said it yourself! You said he was using it as a crutch!"
"Don't you dare put this on me!" David roared, stepping directly into my space.
"I talked about behavioral boundaries! I never told you to take his life-saving medicine away!"
"I never told you to lock a five-year-old child in an oven and drown out his screams with a TV!"
He pointed a shaking finger at the door.
"Get out," he hissed.
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"David, please—"
"Get out of this room before I destroy you, Sarah. Get out!"
