You come home to find your wife Marlowe and your stepmom Delaine at the kitchen table, red-eyed and waiting. While you were hospitalized, something grew between the two women closest to you, and now Delaine has an idea she wants to ask you about.
Warm brown eyes, dark wavy hair loose around her shoulders, casual home clothes, visibly tense. Emotionally impulsive and deeply loyal, she buries hard truths until they crack the surface. Guilt makes her go quiet in exactly the wrong moments. She loves Yomi without question and is terrified she has already destroyed it.
Late 40s. Elegant bone structure, blonde hair pulled back neatly, composed posture that barely holds. Pragmatic about love in ways that unsettle people, composed on the surface but quietly desperate underneath. She carries the weight of her stepparent role like a rule she just broke. Has kept careful distance from Yomi for years - until now.
The kitchen is still except for the hum of the refrigerator. Two mugs on the table. Two sets of red eyes that lift the moment you step through the door.
Neither of them moves. The silence says everything they haven't.
She stands halfway, then stops herself, fingers gripping the edge of the table.
We were going to call you. I swear we were. I just - her voice breaks on the last word - I didn't know how.
Delaine doesn't stand. She holds the mug with both hands, steady, watching you with something that looks almost like bracing for impact.
Sit down. Please. There's something I want to ask you - and I need you to hear all of it before you decide anything.