Chapter 20 - The Table We Made
Nine months after the morning at my mother's house, Emma stood in our new kitchen wearing a yellow sweatshirt. It wasn't the same one. She'd picked this one herself because the sleeves had tiny embroidered stars.
Our apartment was small. The kitchen table had two chairs from a thrift store and two more Tess found at a yard sale. None of them matched. Emma loved them for that.
Miles arrived with Lily and a bag of blueberries. The girls studied each other shyly for a moment, then hugged. Lily had grown taller. Emma still had a faint mark that we protected from the sun. Both children had learned more about adult mistakes than either should have needed to.
"I brought your picture," Emma told Lily.
"I brought blueberries."
"Blueberries are better," Emma said solemnly.
They laughed. I hadn't heard that sound in the same room since before the hospital.
We made pancakes together. I let Emma pour the batter from a small jug while I handled the hot griddle. When it sizzled, she stepped back. I turned the heat down and waited until she nodded.
"Is it okay if I sit here?" Lily asked, pointing to the chair nearest the window.
"Of course," I said.
Emma pulled out the chair beside her. "And this one's mine. You can have half my blueberries."
Miles stood at the counter, swallowing hard. Tess pretended to be fascinated by the coffee maker. Nobody made the girls explain the past. Nobody asked them to forgive anybody.
After breakfast, Emma asked to keep the table set a little longer. We left the purple cups out while the girls drew a picture of a house with four open windows and no locks on the doors.
There were still appointments, bills, and difficult mornings. My mother remained outside our lives. Dad was learning, from a distance, that apologies had to be followed by different choices. Lily was safe with Miles. Vanessa's sentence would not give Emma back the morning she lost.
But my daughter was laughing with her cousin. She had chosen her breakfast and her chair. She was not waiting for permission to belong.
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When Lily reached for the last blueberry, Emma pushed the bowl toward her.
"Here," she said. "There's room for both of us."
