But I suddenly remembered Diane saying, “With me, she understands.”
I remembered her correcting Emma’s posture.
Her food.
Her clothes.
Her bedtime.
I remembered her looking around my apartment with disgust.
“This place is too small for a child.”
I remembered her telling Andrés, “A man can’t work properly if his house is chaos.”
I remembered how she had begun calling Emma “my girl.”
Not my granddaughter.
My girl.
And I realized something terrifying.
Diane had not moved into my house to recover.
She had moved in to replace me.
First in Emma’s routine.
Then in Andrés’s trust.
Then in the legal record.
And eventually, if she had succeeded, in Emma’s life.
I sat beside my daughter’s hospital bed and watched her sleep.
A monitor beeped softly.
Her breathing was steady now.
The doctors said the medication would clear.
They said children can recover.
They said we had caught it before permanent damage was evident.
But no one could tell me how long it would take Emma to stop fearing applesauce.
Or morning vitamins.
Or the sound of her grandmother’s voice.
