during the daylight hours. He wasn’t wearing his sweatpants. He was wearing a dark grey t-shirt and boxer shorts, his bare feet making zero sound against the wood.
He didn’t go to Emma’s bedside immediately.
Instead, he walked over to her white wooden dresser. With deliberate, chilling precision, he reached out and picked up a small, hand-carved wooden music box that my late grandmother had given Emma for her fifth birthday—a little ballerina that spun to Swan Lake.
Evan didn’t open it. He held it in his palm, standing stock-still in the center of the room for nearly three minutes, staring down at it with an expression of such intense, ravenous fascination that my stomach heaved.
Then, he set the music box down and walked over to the bed.
He didn’t tuck her in. He didn’t stroke her hair with affection.