The first storm after Chloe left, he crawled under the kitchen table.
I found him there with his hands over his ears.
“She left in the rain,” he whispered.
I sat on the floor beside him.
“I know.”
“People leave when it rains.”
“No.”
“She did.”
I had no answer.
So I crawled under the table too.
We sat there until the thunder stopped.
Sometimes parenting is not fixing fear.
Sometimes it is making sure a child is not afraid alone.
Leo was the hardest.
Not because he was bad.
Because he remembered.
He remembered Chloe forgetting dinner.
He remembered strangers sleeping on their couch.
He remembered being told to watch Sophie and Noah while Chloe disappeared.
He remembered promises.
For almost a year, he slept in jeans.
One night I asked why.
“So I can go fast.”
“Go where?”
He shrugged.
“If we have to.”
My chest hurt.
“You don’t have to go anywhere.”
“You don’t know that.”
He was nine years old.
I sat beside him on the edge of his bed.
“I know I can’t promise everything.”
He watched me carefully.
“But I can promise this. If something changes, I tell you. I don’t disappear. I don’t sneak out. I don’t make you wake up and guess.”
He didn’t answer.
But the next week, he started sleeping in pajamas.
Sophie processed abandonment differently.
She tried to become perfect.
Perfect grades.
Perfect manners.
Perfect little braids she attempted herself when I failed.
The first time I did her hair for school, I made one braid so crooked she stared into the bathroom mirror and burst out laughing.
Not cruelly.
Really laughing.
I had not heard that sound in weeks.
“What?”
“You made me look like a pine tree.”
“I watched a video.”
“You watched the wrong video.”
So we did it again.
Years later, I could braid her hair with my eyes half closed.
Still, she always made me do it twice.
“The first one is practice,” she would say.
Noah asked questions.
Endless questions.
Why was the moon visible in the daytime?
Why did dogs understand pointing?
Why did cereal get soft?
Why did moms leave?
That last one appeared without warning.
Usually in the car.
Usually when I was least prepared.
“Did Mom leave because we were loud?”
“No.”
“Because Leo was bad?”
“No.”
“Because Mia cried?”
“No.”
