Chapter 1 - THE QUESTION
“If I call someone else Mommy… will you still be mine?”
Hannah Pierce stopped folding the tiny purple pajamas in her lap.
Four-year-old Sophie sat cross-legged on the bedroom rug, staring at the floor as if the question belonged to somebody else.
Hannah’s first instinct was to laugh softly and pull her daughter close. Daniel had remarried six months earlier. His new wife, Vanessa, was still new to Sophie. Two homes were confusing. Two sets of rules were confusing. Adults had made a mess and expected a child to understand the labels.
Instead, Hannah watched Sophie’s hands.
Her daughter was twisting the hem of her shirt so tightly that her knuckles had gone white.
“Why are you asking me that, baby?”
Sophie shrugged.
“Did someone tell you to call Vanessa Mommy?”
Hannah slid off the bed and sat on the rug. “You can call people whatever feels comfortable. Nobody gets to take me away because of a word.”
Sophie looked up fast. “Even if I do it right?”
“What does ‘do it right’ mean?”
Sophie’s lower lip trembled. “Nothing.”
“Honey.”
“I don’t want Daddy mad.”
Hannah kept her voice steady. “Did Daddy get mad?”
Sophie shook her head too quickly.
It was a habit Hannah had never seen before. Sophie checked the hallway before answering as if someone might be listening in a house where nobody else was home.
Hannah reached for her.
Sophie crawled into her lap and whispered against her shoulder, “Vanessa says families only work when everybody tells the same story.”
“What story?”
Sophie buried her face deeper.
“The story where she’s Mommy.”
Hannah held her for a long time.
That night she wrote the conversation down word for word, including the time, the pauses, and the way Sophie had checked the hallway.
Then, while helping Sophie into bed, Hannah found a folded piece of paper tucked inside her daughter’s sock.
It was a drawing of two houses.
One had a bright yellow sun above it.
The other had a black square where the upstairs window should have been.
May you like
Under that house, in shaky preschool letters, Sophie had written one word.
DON’T.
