Not a crash—nothing loud enough to wake the whole house. Just a soft, ugly impact, like someone knocking a fist into a mattress.
For a half-second, I lay in the dark, trying to place the sound inside a dream.
Then my daughter made a noise I’d never heard before.
A wet, strangled whimper—too small for pain that big.
I sat straight up, my heart already sprinting ahead of me. Beside me, my husband, Ethan, slept on his back, mouth slightly open, dead to the world the way people sleep when they believe nothing bad can happen in their house.
I threw off the covers and swung my feet onto the cold hardwood. The hallway light was off, but there was a faint glow under the nursery door—like someone had left the nightlight brighter than usual.
Another sound: a sharp inhale. An adult’s.
