One night she asked me, “Why didn’t you believe me when I called you that time?”
I’d known that question was coming for months. I didn’t make excuses.
“Because I was tired, and distracted, and I wanted to believe everything at home was fine so I didn’t have to worry,” I said. “That was my failure, not yours. You did the right thing by calling. I should have listened.”
She was quiet for a long while. Then she leaned her head on my shoulder.
“You’re listening now,” she said.
On a Saturday morning about a year after that night in the back patio, I came downstairs and heard the washing machine running. Sofia was sitting on the counter in the laundry room eating a mango, scrolling on her phone. Her phone. Hers to keep.
“I threw your work shirts in with my stuff,” she said. “Don’t make it weird.”
