“We both should have.”
That mattered.
Neither of us turned the guilt into a fight.
A few days later, Ethan called his parents.
I sat beside him, but he did the talking.
“I have two kids,” he said. “Not a daughter and a kid who happens to live with me. Two kids.”
I could hear Cecilia’s voice through the phone, though not every word.
She said Milo already had grandparents.
Ethan answered, “Family isn’t a job with limited openings.”
She accused me of making him choose.
His voice went quiet.
“Olivia didn’t make me choose. You did when you decided one of my children counted and one didn’t.”
Then he gave them the boundary.
They could have whatever relationship with him they wanted.
But they would not attend shared celebrations and intentionally treat one child as family while excluding the other.
Cecilia didn’t apologize.
For almost two months, we didn’t see them at all.
