Willow did not allow herself the luxury of disbelief.
The call had torn a hole in the afternoon, and through that hole the truth had rushed in without asking whether she was ready to hold it. Panic would have been loud. Panic would have demanded sound and spectacle. Panic would have stolen time.
This was not panic.
This was the moment after panic decided it had lost the right to exist.
She stood in the center of the bedroom with the phone still in her hand, the screen already dark, the call already over, her body stalled in a narrow gap between before and after. The room looked unchanged. The crib stood where it always did. The folded blanket rested over the chair. Sunlight cut clean lines across the floor like it had not just witnessed something break.
That was the cruelty of it.
Nothing had moved, and everything had.
