The world didn't collapse. It ceased to exist.
The 48 hours after the accident were a blur of sirens, and soft, pitying voices, and hands touching their shoulders. Karlman, they found out later, had never hung up his call. His entire senior tech team had heard 30 seconds of his soul-empty screaming before Ben had finally, mercifully, cut the line.
Now, there was just silence. The old, familiar silence of their first 15 years had returned. But it was no longer an empty silence. It was a haunted silence. It was a heavy silence. It was the silence of absence.
Karlman's crushing guilt was a physical thing. It was a white-hot, lead-lined cloak he couldn't take off. He was the analyst. He was the 'A-type' who saw every variable. And he had missed the only variable that mattered.
He moved through the house like a ghost, his "A-type" brain trying to fix the unfixable. He was the one who spoke to the police, his voice a dead monotone. He was the one who spoke to the funeral director, using words like "casket" and "cremation" as if he were discussing server specs.
He was managing the project of his daughter's death.
Because if he stopped moving, if he stopped managing, he would have to feel. And he knew, with a data-driven certainty, that if he allowed himself to truly feel the weight of what he had done, he would be annihilated.
He scrubbed. He cleaned the gravel on the driveway, on his hands and knees, with a bucket of bleach and a wire brush, until his knuckles were raw and bleeding. He was trying to scrub away the apple juice. The stain.
He packed Lia's room. He did it at 3 a.m. He took the neuro-stimulative mobiles, the high-contrast art, the copies of The Economist for babies, and he packed them in boxes. He labeled the boxes with a black marker. 'Lia. Clothes.' 'Lia. Toys.' 'Lia. Books.'
He was efficient. He was precise. He was a monster.
He was a murderer who was still allowed to sleep in the house.
Eunice was his judgment.
She hadn't spoken since the driveway. She was "catatonic," the soft, pitying doctors had said. But she wasn't. She was strategizing.
She sat on the exact same stool at the kitchen island where she had been sitting when it happened. She was wearing the same silk blouse, now stained with something. She had not moved. She had not slept.
In her hand, she held the blue sippy cup.
The police had put it in an evidence bag. When they had given it back, she had taken it. And she had not let it go. She just sat, her thumb rubbing the raised-plastic logo on the side. 'No-Spill.'
Karlman would try to talk to her.
"Eunice," he'd whisper, his voice raw. "E. Please. Say something. Scream at me. Hit me. Please. Say something."
She would just look at him. Her eyes were not dead. They were not sad. They were calculating. She was processing the new, horrifying data. She was running the simulation, over and over.
'He got in the car. He was on the phone. The server. He was... angry. I saw her run. I shouted. He didn't hear. The car is soundproof. He's... he's a workaholic. He's distracted. His work. His work... killed her.'
This was the new truth. The new, unchangeable, root-level code of their lives.
"Eunice," Karlman tried again, his hands shaking. He hadn't slept in 72 hours. He was breaking. "I... I packed her room. I... I thought it would be easier... for you... I..."
Eunice's gaze, slow and heavy, moved from the sippy cup to his face.
Her lips parted. A dry, cracking sound.
"You," she whispered. Her voice was a ruin. "You... packed?"
"I..." he flinched.
"You 'fixed' it," she said. It wasn't a question. "You 'managed' the problem. You... you deleted her."
"No, E, I just... I put it... in the garage..."
Eunice stood up. The sudden movement made the stool scrape on the marble floor. The sound was a gunshot in the silent house. She walked, with a calm, steady, 'A-type' purpose, past her husband. She didn't look at him. She was on a new mission.
She walked to the garage. Karlman followed, terrified. "Eunice, stop..."
She saw the stack of neatly-labeled boxes. 'Lia. Toys.'
She opened it.
Inside was the plush yellow rabbit Karlman had bought on their 15th anniversary. The one that had started all this. The one that had given them two and a half years of pure, unfiltered joy.
Eunice picked up the rabbit. She looked at it.
And then, with a cold, precise, strategic fury, she began to tear it apart. She ripped the seams. She pulled the stuffing out in white, snowy handfuls. She tore the button eyes off. She didn't stop until it was just a pile of shredded yellow fabric on the concrete floor.
Then she turned and looked at Karlman. Her eyes were clear. She was no longer catatonic. She was back.
"Get out," she said.
"What? Eunice... it's... it's the funeral... tomorrow..."
"Get. Out. Of. My. House."
Her voice was the voice that closed deals. The voice that destroyed competitors.
"You don't get to... clean up... what you broke," she hissed, her body vibrating with a rage so pure it was sub-zero. "You don't get to pack away my daughter."
"Our daughter..." he choked.
"You. Broke. Her."