My four-year-old daughter, Emma, stood completely still for a moment—then suddenly rushed toward the pastor, shouting something that brought the entire room into stunned silence.

Always for Trevor.

The same man who promised he would eventually stand up to his mother—but never did. The same man who would redirect conversations whenever Miriam humiliated me in front of others.

“That’s just how she is,” he would say.

“I just ignore it.”

“She means well, in her own way.”

Those words once sounded like patience, back when I still loved him enough to believe them.

Later, I understood they were simply a quieter form of abandonment.