Chapter 17 - SUPERVISED
Three months later, Claire saw Valerie for the first time in a therapeutic visitation room.
Mateo was too young to understand much, but he cried when he saw Claire and then reached automatically for Daniel.
Valerie stood still as stone.
The therapist invited Claire to sit.
Claire looked thinner.
Older.
Not because county detention had transformed her.
Because consequences had.
“Hi, baby.”
Valerie did not answer.
Claire’s eyes filled.
“I missed you.”
Valerie looked at the floor and said the one thing Daniel suspected had been growing inside her all this time.
“I missed you too, but I was scared you’d be mean again.”
Claire covered her mouth with one hand.
The therapist gently asked, “Can you respond to that, Claire?”
Claire nodded shakily.
“Yes. I was mean. You were right to be scared.”
It was the best beginning Daniel thought possible.
Not a miracle.
Not forgiveness.
A true sentence.
Valerie asked no more questions that day.
But when they got home, she asked Daniel one of her own.
“Does saying sorry fix stuff?”
He tucked the blanket around her.
“No.”
“Then why do grown-ups always say it like it does?”
He smiled sadly.
“Because sometimes it’s the first real thing they’ve said.”
Valerie thought about that.
“Is Mommy real now?”
Daniel answered carefully.
May you like
“I think she’s trying to be.”
That was enough for one night.
