Chapter 26 - EMMA ASKS THE QUESTIONEighteen months later, Emma asked:
“Did Grandma mean to kill the babies?”
We were sitting on the floor building a wooden train track.
She was six now.
Therapy had taught me not to overload answers.
“No.”
“Then why did they die?”
“Grandma gave them medicine that wasn’t safe for babies.”
“Why?”
“She wanted them to sleep.”
Emma frowned.
“That’s stupid.”
“Yes.”
“Is Grandma bad?”
I thought.
“She did something very dangerous and very wrong.”
“That wasn’t my question.”
Six.
Already impossible.
“I don’t think people are only one thing.”
She placed a train on the track.
“Daddy did bad too.”
“Yes.”
“Do you hate him?”
“No.”
“Do you love him?”
I swallowed.
“In a different way than before.”
She accepted that more easily than adults did.
Then:
“Did I get Grandma in trouble because I told Pastor?”
My heart broke.
I took both her hands.
“No.”
“She got herself in trouble by what she did.”
“But I told.”
“You told the truth.”
Emma looked at me.
“Was that good?”
“Yes.”
Then I corrected myself.
“It was brave. But you never should have needed to be brave about something like that.”
May you like
She leaned into me.
We sat beside the train tracks until the afternoon light disappeared.
