Chapter 10 - Olivia’s daughter
Olivia gave birth four months after my fall.
A healthy girl.
Sophie.
Seven pounds, one ounce.
I learned through Julia.
Not Olivia.
Not Karen.
I stared at the photograph for a long time.
Tiny hat.
Pink face.
Olivia smiling from a hospital bed.
My first feeling was grief.
Then relief.
Then anger at myself for feeling grief.
My therapist said:
“Feelings are not actions.”
Good.
I sent nothing.
No gift.
No message.
Not because Sophie had done anything.
Because I had not spoken to Olivia since the shower and was not ready to pretend childbirth dissolved accountability.
Later, when people accused me of punishing an innocent baby, I said:
“I have no relationship with the baby yet. That is not punishment.”
May you like
Access to children is not automatically owed to every relative.
That lesson had taken me thirty-two years.
