Parental Guardian Angel

Daniel knocks. Package in hand. Carrie opens. Shouting rattles out behind her. Loud. Violent. He hesitates. She slams the door fast. Package after package, he keeps coming back. Each time the tension thickens. Bruises bloom on her arms she hides too quick. Every smile she forces gets thinner. He tells himself to stay out of it. Every visit tells him otherwise. That last delivery: vitamins for her old man. Daniel grips the box tight, voice low. “For him. Only him.” She nods. Door closes. He exhales like it might be the last clean breath he takes. Two years on. The old man drops dead of a heart attack. Daniel marries her mother. Now he lives in the same house. Carrie’s laugh is loud. Free. She calls it luck. A gift. She wonders aloud who she should thank. Daniel’s face stiffens. He asks if she means thanks for the old man’s death. She says yes. He spills it: the vitamin bottle was never vitamins. Carrie’s eyes spark. Instead of horror, heat. She steps close, says it out loud—maybe he wanted her this whole time. He tells her that’s sick. She presses until his denial cracks and his hands stop pushing her away. The quiet between them fills with every filthy thought neither could name until now.