She was handling us.
“Every time one of you got angry,” Emma said, “someone threatened not to come.”
Nobody spoke.
“Dad wouldn’t come if Mom’s family was there.”
“Mom didn’t want to come if Dad brought someone.”
“Sophie wouldn’t come if Dad disappointed her again.”
She looked at the three of us.
“Do you know what happens when everyone you love keeps threatening to leave?”
Her voice softened.
“You become very good at giving them reasons to stay.”
Sophie started crying.
So did I.
Then Emma looked at me.
“And you always tell me how mature I am.”
That hurt more than anything else.
Because I had.
For eight years.
Emma is so mature.
Emma understands.
Emma never causes problems.
I had been praising my daughter for making my divorce easier.
I just hadn’t recognized it that way.
“I thought you were mature,” I whispered.
Emma’s eyes filled with tears.
“I was seventeen, Mom.”
Four words.
That was all.
Seventeen.
A child learning how to keep adults in the same room.
Sophie wiped her face.
“Why didn’t you tell us?”
Emma looked exhausted.
“Because I wanted all of you there.”
Then she looked at Tom.
“And I wanted my father at my wedding.”
That silenced everyone.
Sophie had spent years being angry enough at Tom for both sisters.
Emma hadn’t.
Or maybe she had.
But underneath her anger was still a daughter who wanted her father to show up.
Emma looked at Sophie.
“You can hate him because you stopped needing him.”
She swallowed.
“I didn’t.”
Sophie flinched.
Then stepped closer.
