Because he obeyed her fear without arguing with it.
The visit lasted twenty minutes.
Emma colored.
Andrés watched.
He did not touch her until she asked him to help sharpen a crayon.
At the end, he said:
“I love you.”
Emma did not say it back.
She only said:
“Bye.”
In the car, she asked:
“Was that mean?”
“No.”
“He looked sad.”
“He is sad.”
“Because of me?”
“No, baby. Because of his choices.”
She thought about that.
Then she said:
“Choices can make people sad?”
“Yes.”
She looked out the window.
“Grandma made bad choices.”
“Yes.”
“Daddy made quiet choices.”
I gripped the steering wheel.
Quiet choices.
My four-year-old had named the thing adults spend whole lives avoiding.
“Yes,” I said softly. “He did.”
Diane’s first court appearance was ugly.
Not because she looked like a monster.
That would have been easier.
She looked like a grandmother.
Soft gray hair.
Plain cardigan.
A cane she suddenly needed again.
A trembling mouth.
She wore a small cross around her neck.
I had never seen that necklace before.
Her lawyer argued that she had made a mistake.
That she had misunderstood dosing.
That Emma had behavioral issues.
That Diane was an elderly woman with chronic pain who had only tried to calm a child during tantrums.
Calm.
There was that word again.
