BEAUTIFULLY UNFAITHFULLY
I had to swallow the scream.
I couldn't let myself break down completely, because Lilibeth was just down the hall.
Lilibeth. My fierce, observant seventeen-year-old, she already knew too much, already saw the cracks, heard the clipped tones, and carried a heavy, cynical sadness that didn't belong on the shoulders of a teenager, If she heard me crying like this, if she saw her poised, indestructible mother reduced to a sobbing wreck on a shower floor, the illusion would vanish entirely.