“Mommy?”
“Yes, baby?”
“Are you mad at me anymore?”
I turned toward her.
“About what?”
She picked at the edge of her blanket.
“For not telling you sooner.”
I took her hands in mine.
“Sweetheart, you were a little girl. You were scared, and someone you trusted told you to keep secrets. None of that was your fault.”
She looked at me carefully.
“So I’m not bad?”
I pulled her into my arms.
“No. You were never bad. You were a child who deserved to be protected.”
She wrapped her arms around me and held on tightly.
After a while, her breathing slowed, and she fell asleep against my chest.
I stayed there long after the television went dark.
I thought about the woman I had been before that night—the woman who had mistaken silence for peace, compromise for love, and a complete family for a safe one.
