The sound of Peter’s laughter—music that should have healed Daniel—felt like an accusation.
Look what you’ve been missing, Dad.
Daniel couldn’t take it anymore.
The bubble shattered.
He stepped aggressively into the kitchen.
The floor creaked.
His shadow cut through the sunlight, darkening the joyful scene.
“Emily!” he thundered.
The magic exploded.
Emily whipped her head around, eyes wide—but she didn’t drop the child.
Her hands tightened around Peter’s ankles to keep him from falling.
Peter startled at his father’s roar.
His knees trembled.
He wobbled backward, fear replacing joy in an instant.
Daniel lunged forward, arms outstretched.
“Let him go!” he roared.
“You’re going to kill him!
He’s disabled!
He’s not a toy!”
The word disabled echoed off the kitchen tiles—raw, ugly, irreversible.
Daniel reached them and shoved Emily aside, nearly violently, tearing Peter from her protective hands.
He crushed the child to his chest.
Peter screamed, stretching his arms toward Emily—toward the floor, toward the game that had just been stolen from him.
Daniel glared at Emily, now sitting on the floor, rubbing her arm where he’d pushed her.
She wasn’t submissive.
She looked at him with pity.
“You’re fired,” Daniel spat, trembling.
“Get your things and get out before I call the police for child abuse.”
Silence returned—but heavy.
Broken only by the sobs of a child who had, for a few precious minutes, forgotten he couldn’t walk.
