“Sometimes I stopped him.”
“When he married Gina, I lost it,” I said. “I imagined you watching him be a family with someone else. Like… Ryan. I thought it would break you.”
Ryan stepped forward. “I didn’t take her father away. He married my mother.”
“I know.”
Iris looked at him, then back at me. “So you let me think I was unwanted.”
“No. I told you every day that you were loved.”
“I thought it would break you.”
“By you,” she said. “Not by him.”
I reached for her. “Iris, please.”
She moved back. “Don’t touch me!”
“I thought I was protecting you.”
“No,” she said. “You were protecting the version of the story where you were the only one who stayed.”
