I reached across the table.
“I’m sorry, Mom.”
“I know.”
It hurt, but differently now.
She leaned into me, and I held her.
I thought that was the last difficult thing Daniel had left us to face.
A few nights later, Mia proved me wrong.
I found her holding an old photograph of Daniel, twenty-five and grinning.
“Sophie gave me this. She thought I should know what he looked like. She told me he hummed when he was nervous.”
I laughed. “Constantly. Always the wrong tune.”
Mia smiled, and I saw Daniel in the crooked corner of her mouth.
It hurt, but differently now. He had betrayed me. He had also been Sophie’s father and, unknowingly, Mia’s.
Those truths didn’t have to cancel each other out.
