“There was no plan!”
Emma took my hand.
“She said you already decided and Mom would come around.”
I felt something cold settle in my chest.
“She said what?”
Cheryl looked at me.
“I knew you’d be resistant.”
“Resistant?”
“Because you always assume I’m interfering.”
“You secretly made a custody calendar for my daughter.”
“It’s not custody!”
“Then stop calling our house her father’s house and yours her mother’s!”
Adam stepped between us.
“Enough.”
He looked at Emma.
“Listen to me. I never decided you were going to live here.”
Emma stared at him.
“Really?”
“Really.”
“And Mom knew nothing about any of this.”
“No.”
Her shoulders dropped.
I hadn’t realized how tense she’d been until that moment.
Adam continued.
“I should’ve talked to Mom before agreeing to any changes to your weekends. That was my mistake. But I never agreed to alternating weeks, changing your school, or any of this.”
Emma nodded.
Cheryl sat on the edge of the bed.
“I was trying to make things easier.”
“For who?” I asked.
She looked up.
“All of you.”
“Nobody asked you to.”
“You two work. Emma has activities. She’s getting older.”
“And?”
Cheryl’s eyes suddenly filled.
“And she hardly wants to come anymore.”
The room became quiet. Cheryl looked at Emma.
“You used to beg to stay another night.”
Emma said nothing.
“Now there’s always a friend’s birthday or something at school or somewhere else you’d rather be.”
There it was.
Not an excuse. But an explanation.
Adam was Cheryl’s only child.
His father had left when Adam was young, and she’d raised him alone. For years, it had been the two of them.
Then Adam grew up.
He married me.
We moved away.
Emma had given Cheryl another little person who needed her.
Now Emma was growing up too.
Cheryl had felt it happening and tried to stop it.
“I thought if everything was set up,” she said, “she’d see how easy it could be.”
Emma looked around the room.
“It wasn’t my room anymore.”
Cheryl frowned.
“What do you mean?”
“It used to be.”
“It still is.”
“No.”
Emma pointed toward the calendar.
“You made a whole life for me and kept telling me it was already decided.”
Cheryl looked stricken.
“I was trying to make you feel at home.”
“I already felt at home here.”
Emma’s voice became quieter.
“Until you made it feel like I wasn’t allowed to leave.”
