I began to understand that my own feelings were becoming another problem.<\/p>\n
I was frightened.<\/p>\n
I was angry.<\/p>\n
And I was desperate to make something happen.<\/p>\n
None of those feelings could protect Danielle by themselves.<\/p>\n
I had to be careful with them.<\/p>\n
Evan remained between us.<\/p>\n
The weapon was still pressed against my daughter's side.<\/p>\n
She stood behind him without speaking.<\/p>\n
I looked at her hands.<\/p>\n
They were shaking.<\/p>\n
I looked at her face.<\/p>\n
Tears marked both cheeks.<\/p>\n
Then I looked at Evan.<\/p>\n
He was watching me again.<\/p>\n
I wished I could understand what he saw when he looked at us.<\/p>\n
Did he see how frightened Danielle was?<\/p>\n
Did he understand what he was doing?<\/p>\n
Did he care?<\/p>\n
I couldn't answer any of those questions.<\/p>\n
And I couldn't afford to assume I knew.<\/p>\n
I had to judge him by what he was doing.<\/p>\n
Not by what I hoped he might feel.<\/p>\n
He had not lowered the gun.<\/p>\n
He had not allowed Danielle to move away.<\/p>\n
He had not given either of us a reason to believe the danger was over.<\/p>\n
That was enough.<\/p>\n
I tried not to think beyond the next few seconds.<\/p>\n
Thinking too far ahead made my fear worse.<\/p>\n
I could imagine all sorts of terrible things.<\/p>\n
But imagining them did not make me better prepared.<\/p>\n
It only made me want to act before I understood what was happening.<\/p>\n
So I focused on what I could see.<\/p>\n
Evan's face.<\/p>\n
Danielle's hands.<\/p>\n
The fabric of her dress.<\/p>\n
The front door.<\/p>\n
The kitchen window.<\/p>\n
Those small details had become the whole world to me.<\/p>\n
I watched Evan glance toward the window.<\/p>\n
His eyes moved quickly.<\/p>\n
Then he looked back at me.<\/p>\n
For a moment, I wondered whether I should speak while his attention was divided.<\/p>\n
The thought disappeared almost immediately.<\/p>\n
His attention wasn't divided enough.<\/p>\n
He was still holding the weapon.<\/p>\n
Danielle was still within his reach.<\/p>\n
I couldn't pretend otherwise.<\/p>\n
I took a slow breath.<\/p>\n
My chest felt tight.<\/p>\n
I wanted to move my shoulders.<\/p>\n
I didn't.<\/p>\n
Even an ordinary movement seemed dangerous now.<\/p>\n
I had never been so conscious of how much freedom there was in simply moving around a room.<\/p>\n
Danielle had lost that freedom.<\/p>\n
So had I, in a different way.<\/p>\n
We were both waiting for Evan to decide what happened next.<\/p>\n
The thought made me furious.<\/p>\n
But anger was not going to help me unless I controlled it.<\/p>\n
I looked at Danielle again.<\/p>\n
She seemed to be concentrating on staying still.<\/p>\n
Her face was pale.<\/p>\n
Her lips were nearly colorless.<\/p>\n
I wanted to tell her to keep breathing.<\/p>\n
But she was breathing.<\/p>\n
I could see the slight movement of her shoulders.<\/p>\n
I held on to that.<\/p>\n
One breath.<\/p>\n
Then another.<\/p>\n
I counted without meaning to.<\/p>\n
It gave me something to focus on besides the gun.<\/p>\n
But I always returned to the gun.<\/p>\n
I couldn't help it.<\/p>\n
I was afraid that if I looked away for too long, something would change before I noticed.<\/p>\n
Evan shifted his gaze toward the front door.<\/p>\n
I followed the movement with my eyes.<\/p>\n
Nothing about the doorway explained his concern.<\/p>\n
I didn't know what he was thinking.<\/p>\n
I didn't know whether he was considering leaving.<\/p>\n
I didn't know whether he was afraid of being interrupted.<\/p>\n
I only knew he kept checking.<\/p>\n
The repeated movement made me wonder whether something had unsettled him.<\/p>\n
But wondering was all I could do.<\/p>\n
I couldn't base Danielle's safety on a guess.<\/p>\n
I looked back at him.<\/p>\n
His expression remained tense.<\/p>\n
He was no longer showing the easy confidence I had noticed before.<\/p>\n
Yet that uncertainty had not made him less threatening.<\/p>\n
If anything, I was more afraid of what he might do suddenly.<\/p>\n
I wanted him to calm down.<\/p>\n
I wanted him to stop looking around.<\/p>\n
I wanted him to realize that he could simply move the gun away from Danielle.<\/p>\n
But I had no control over those choices.<\/p>\n
I could only control myself.<\/p>\n
That realization was difficult to accept.<\/p>\n
It meant I couldn't force the moment to end.<\/p>\n
I couldn't make him behave differently.<\/p>\n
And I couldn't promise Danielle that I would fix everything.<\/p>\n
I had spent much of my life wanting to give my daughter certainty.<\/p>\n
Now certainty was the one thing I couldn't offer.<\/p>\n
I looked at her eyes.<\/p>\n
She glanced toward me.<\/p>\n
I kept my face as steady as possible.<\/p>\n
I hoped that was enough to tell her I was still thinking.<\/p>\n
Still paying attention.<\/p>\n
Still trying.<\/p>\n
I didn't know whether she understood.<\/p>\n
I wished I could ask.<\/p>\n
But I couldn't risk starting a conversation.<\/p>\n
Evan was listening.<\/p>\n
He was watching.<\/p>\n
And the gun had not moved.<\/p>\n
I thought about how strange it was that silence could require so much effort.<\/p>\n
Normally, I would have spoken without hesitation.<\/p>\n
Now I had to keep stopping words before they reached my mouth.<\/p>\n
I wanted to ask him to let her go.<\/p>\n
I wanted to tell Danielle I loved her.<\/p>\n
I wanted to demand that he put the gun down.<\/p>\n
Instead, I stayed quiet.<\/p>\n
My silence did not mean I had nothing to say.<\/p>\n
It meant I was afraid of what speaking might cause.<\/p>\n
I looked at Danielle again.<\/p>\n
She was still there.<\/p>\n
Still standing.<\/p>\n
Still breathing.<\/p>\n
That was what mattered most.<\/p>\n
I told myself I would not make a sudden movement simply to feel less helpless.<\/p>\n
I would not let my anger take over.<\/p>\n
And I would not confuse doing something with doing the right thing.<\/p>\n
I kept watching Evan.<\/p>\n
I kept my attention on his hand.<\/p>\n
And I remained still because I could not yet see a safer choice.<\/p>\n
I began to understand that my own feelings were becoming another problem. I was frightened. I was angry. And I was desperate to make something happen. None of those feelings … <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37809,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-37819","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-insightdrama"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37819","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=37819"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37819\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":37839,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37819\/revisions\/37839"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/37809"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=37819"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=37819"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/insightdrama.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=37819"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}