The way his jaw clenched when Cassandra spoke cruelly.
The way his fingers twitched under the sheet when the twins cried.
Or it could’ve been a man pretending to be broken while the world revealed itself.
Naomi didn’t know the truth yet. But she knew enough to feel that something was wrong.
Cassandra didn’t grieve the accident.
She curated it.
She cried for cameras. She spoke in soft tones when donors visited. She posted a photo of herself holding Marcus’s hand with the caption: Strength is love.
Then she walked into his room when no one else was there and became someone else entirely.
Naomi saw it happen in pieces at first. A comment here. A threat there. A refusal to let the twins see their father because “it upsets the household.”
Then Naomi saw Cassandra spill water onto Marcus like he was a stain.
Not anger alone.
A memory.
A recognition of what it means when a person believes they can hurt you without consequence.
The twins ran to their father, climbing onto the bed, trying to warm him with their small bodies. Naomi rushed forward with a towel, drying Marcus’s chest with quick, careful hands.
“Stop it!” Cassandra screamed.
“Someone has to,” Naomi said, voice shaking but unyielding. “Because you’re torturing him.”
Cassandra’s eyes flashed. “You’re fired,” she hissed, grabbing Naomi’s arm and yanking her back. “Get out of my house now. Take these children and disappear.”
Naomi steadied herself and knelt on the cold marble floor, pulling the twins close as their sobs shook their small bodies.
“It’s okay,” she whispered. “I’ve got you.”
Cassandra turned away, already done with them, already rewriting the world in which none of them existed.
The door slammed. Silence fell like a bruise.
Naomi stayed anyway.
She dried Marcus’s chest. She changed the sheets. She tucked the blankets around him as if he were fragile glass. No hesitation. No resentment. Only care.
“I’m sorry,” Marcus rasped. “You didn’t deserve any of this.”
“None of you did,” Naomi said.
She sat on the edge of the bed while the twins curled against their father’s sides, finally quiet.
Then Naomi said something that would have been unthinkable to anyone who understood money the way Cassandra did.
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