Then she snatched the bottle from my hand and stuffed it back into her bag.
Too quickly.
“You okay?” I asked.
“Yeah.”
That sounded like my daughter.
“Your eyes look sore.”
She rubbed beneath one of them. “We stayed up really late.”
“Watching what?”
“Some awful movie Frances picked.”
“Naturally.”
Maddie smiled, but it didn’t reach the rest of her face.
Then she carried the bag upstairs and closed her bedroom door.
“We stayed up really late.”
I stood in the hallway for another few seconds.
Something had changed.
I just didn’t know what.
***
For 16 years, Maddie and I had been a team.
Her father left before she was born. No dramatic custody fight. No birthday cards sent late.
Something had changed.
No promises to visit and then broken at the last minute.
He simply chose not to be part of it.
So I raised her.
And, somehow, I got lucky.
