Chapter 8 - THE PEOPLE WHO STAYED
I moved over so Miles could sit beside me.
“Dad made a choice he shouldn't have made,” I said. “He told us he was at work when he wasn't. That wasn't because of anything you or Mae did.”
Miles traced the star on his map. “I called him. I thought maybe he couldn't hear.”
“He should have come to you.”
“Was the girl more important?”
I wanted to answer that no one could be more important to Reid than his own children. Saturday had made that easy sentence impossible to say. I chose one I could stand behind.
“You matter every day, Miles. What Dad did was wrong. Grown-ups can make wrong choices even when they love their kids. You don't have to make it sound okay to protect him.”
Miles leaned against my shoulder. We sat like that until his breathing slowed, and I carried the aquarium map to his room when he was ready to sleep.
The following morning Mae asked about the girl too. She wanted to know if Sophie had been told a lie. I said she had, and that none of the children were responsible for what the adults had said. Mae considered this while tying her shoes.
“I don't want her to get in trouble for the shark tour,” she said.
“She won't,” I promised.
Reid didn't disappear from the children's lives, though I stopped arranging his calls to make him look dependable. With help from our lawyers, we put a temporary schedule in writing: school pickups, weekends, who would take Miles to soccer, who would keep Mae's dental appointment. He was responsible for confirming his time with them himself. When plans changed, he had to tell them before they waited at a window for him.
On his first visit, he asked to speak with both children while I stayed nearby. He told them he'd lied about working at the aquarium. He said he'd seen Miles across the tank and had been wrong not to come over. He didn't explain his relationship with Beth or ask the twins to comfort him.
Miles said, “I know you saw me.”
Reid's face tightened. “You were right. I'm sorry.”
The apology didn't make Miles run into his arms. He asked if they could play cards instead, and Reid said yes. Mae set up the game on the kitchen table. I went to make tea, close enough to hear them arguing over the rules, far enough away to let their time together belong to them.
Beth withdrew her name from the apartment paperwork. Any refund and fee had to be sorted with the property manager. Reid agreed through counsel to replace the $4,800 taken from our shared roof fund on a written schedule using his own wages. We recorded the VIP charges too, so the money wouldn't vanish into an argument over who remembered which purchase.
I still had a mortgage, a roof estimate, and two school calendars to manage. Some evenings I was angry that the cleanest answer to Reid's lies came in the form of more paperwork. But a written plan told me who was picking up Mae on Thursday. Anger alone couldn't do that.
Helen came by before her next scheduled pickup. She apologized for repeating Reid's version of the transfer without asking me. I told her I appreciated it and gave her the updated school form. She looked at the twins' drawings on the refrigerator for a long moment, then asked if she could still take them for ice cream after school.
“They'd like that,” I said.
It wasn't my job to keep Reid comfortable with his parents. It mattered that the children didn't lose people who showed up for them.
For weeks, Miles wouldn't walk past the aquarium map without turning it over. Then one Saturday Mae announced she wanted to go back. The turtle exhibit had opened a new viewing area, and she was convinced the smallest turtle would recognize her purple backpack.
I asked Miles what he thought. He studied the map and said, “Can we go when nobody has to leave for work?”
“Yes,” I said. I checked my schedule before I made the promise.
We bought three regular tickets. We packed sandwiches instead of buying pretzels, and Mae spent so long watching the turtles that Miles sat down on the floor beside her. Eventually we reached the shark gallery.
The private deck was occupied by a group wearing blue wristbands. I felt my stomach tighten, then noticed the twins were watching the water, not the people across it. A shark passed close enough for Miles to see the shape of its teeth.
“Could you see it better from up there?” he asked.
“Maybe,” I said. “Do you want to find out another day?”
He thought about it. “I can see it from here.”
Mae pointed to a ray gliding just above our heads. “And they can't see that one from their deck.”
May you like
We stayed until the ray was gone. At the exit, Miles gave me his hand while Mae ran ahead to show the volunteer her turtle stamp. For the first time since Saturday, the aquarium was simply a place the three of us had been together.
Through the glass, I had seen where Reid chose to stand. This time, when my children turned around, they found me on the same side.
