Chapter 1

My nine-year-old daughter kept score.

Every time her father broke a promise, she wrote it down and stuck the note to our closet wall.

I never counted them. Not until last Friday, when I opened the closet to grab Clara's coat and found the whole wall gone yellow.

Ninety-eight sticky notes.

Daddy missed my recital to take Jax ice skating.

Daddy forgot my birthday because Jax scraped his knee.

Daddy promised Parent Night but stayed with Jax's mom.

Jax was the son of Lila, a woman my husband Ethan worked with. He said she was all alone in the world. He loved being the man who saved her.

Tonight was the state piano finals. Clara's one shot at the scholarship.

That morning, Ethan knelt down and held her hands.

"I won't leave your side for one second, baby girl."

He'd bought her a white silk dress for the stage. She wore it like it might break.

We took the front row. Clara was backstage. Ten minutes before the curtain, Ethan's phone lit up.

Lila. Again. And again.

His face changed.

"Jax had a panic attack. Lila can't calm him down alone." He was already reaching for his coat.

I caught his wrist. "Clara plays in ten minutes. You swore."

He pulled free. "She has you. Jax has no one."

He walked out. The auditorium doors swung shut behind him.

Then the spotlight hit the stage.

Clara came out and searched the crowd. Her eyes swept the front rows and stopped on the empty seat beside me.

Her shoulders dropped.

She played the whole piece without a single wrong note. It was flawless. It was also dead. No joy in it at all.

Afterward, families crowded the lobby. Fathers lifted their girls in the air.

Clara stood alone by the glass doors, holding her trophy against her chest.

The drive home was silent except for the heater.

At a red light, I watched her in the mirror. She pulled a fresh note and a pen from her pocket. She wrote slowly. Her hand shook.

Then she looked up and met my eyes.

"He picked them again, didn't he."

It wasn't a question.

She stuck the note to the wall the second we got inside.

Note #99. Dad left me for Jax again.

I stood in the hallway and told myself ninety-nine was the end of it.

I was wrong.

The hundredth note almost killed her.