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ever be the sa in her life had ever hurt before

Jack stood at the , his forehead pressed against the cool glass, watching his wife toss flat biscuits to his giggling daughters

He squeezed his eyes shut and tried not to think about as happening to hi happen with her sudden smiles and casual touches

He had to reo, when his wife's hatred for hiun, he'd learned to squelch his hurt and need beneath a veneer of icy calhed at him, he turned ahen she slapped him, he turned the other cheek

It had alorked He'd walked around this house silent, alone and lonely, like an undead thing in the world of the barely alive After a while, she had stopped even trying to bait hiers, all of them, each one distant and unconnected with the others

He hated it, of course, but it was the only way to protect his precious children It was the one thing he and Aer to theotten Even now, years after the breakdown, he went to sleep each night afraid, and woke eachin a cold sweat He was always desperately afraid that the darkness would take hi a blackout, he'd hurt someone Maybe even his babies

He accepted his isolation from his loved ones as a fact of life, another ramification of his cowardice, and mental defect

But now things were changing Until Caleb's birth, he couldn't reaered him He watched her manipu-

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lations froh eyes that understood and anticipated her everythat edge She was doing the unexpected, changing her routines Every ti new, he felt it like a hard punch in the sto velocity? pain, shaest of theriest of all, was need He'd thought the need for her had died years ago, buried in the icy coffin of her hatred

Only noas creeping back, suffusing his senses and sucking the strength from his soul God, when she smiled at him, the need for her was like a ha since she'd sotten Almost

"Ignore her," he said quietly to hinore it all, and remember who she is and why she hates you

The sound of Savannah's carefree laughter seeped through the half-open door and filled the small, darkened kitchen

Jack groaned and pulled away fro not to see the tablecloth and flowers

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