Chapter 7 - Telling Mia The Truth
I told Mia about Dante Saturday morning.
Not everything.
Not even close.
Six-year-olds did not need histories of adult mistakes.
They needed truth in sizes they could carry.
We sat together at the kitchen table making blueberry pancakes.
Mia was wearing her favorite yellow socks and humming to herself while arranging berries into a smiley face.
“Bug?”
“Yes?”
“Can we talk about something?”
She immediately looked suspicious.
“Am I in trouble?”
“No.”
“Did you find the glitter?”
“What glitter?”
She became very still.
I narrowed my eyes.
“We’ll return to that.”
“Okay.”
I turned off the stove.
“You remember asking me about your dad?”
Her expression changed.
She nodded.
“A little.”
“I learned something important this week.”
“What?”
“I found him.”
Mia stared at me.
Children could become extraordinarily still when something mattered.
“Where was he?”
“Here in Seattle.”
“All this time?”
“Sometimes here.”
She frowned.
“Did he know me?”
There it was.
The question adults might circle for twenty minutes.
Children walked straight toward it.
“No,” I said. “He didn’t know for sure that you were his daughter.”
“Why?”
“Because he and I lost contact before you were born.”
Her brow furrowed.
“But phones exist.”
I almost smiled.
“They do.”
“Why didn’t you call?”
“I tried once.”
“What happened?”
“The message didn’t reach him.”
She considered that.
“Like when Grandma texts the wrong person?”
“A little more complicated.”
“Does he know now?”
“Yes.”
“What did he say?”
My throat tightened.
“He was very surprised.”
“Good surprised?”
“Yes.”
She placed one blueberry in her mouth.
“Does he want to meet me?”
“Yes.”
Mia thought about that for almost thirty seconds.
Then she asked, “Do I have to?”
The question relieved me in a strange way.
It meant she understood she had some agency.
“No.”
“Never?”
“If you never wanted to, I would listen.”
She seemed satisfied.
“Do you want to?”
“I think maybe.”
“Okay.”
“Not today.”
“Okay.”
“Can I see his picture?”
I had anticipated that.
I opened my phone and showed her a photograph Luca had sent.
Dante before the shooting, standing beside a sailboat on Lake Washington.
Mia leaned close.
“That’s him?”
“Yes.”
“He looks serious.”
“He often does.”
“He has my eyes.”
I smiled.
“You have his eyes.”
“That’s what I said.”
Fair enough.
She studied the photo longer.
“Does he like horses?”
“I don’t know.”
Her eyes widened.
“You didn’t ask?”
“I had other questions.”
“That should have been first.”
“I’ll improve my priorities.”
She returned to her pancakes.
Two minutes later, she asked, “Does he know my name?”
“Yes.”
“All of it?”
“Amelia Rose Callahan.”
“Did he like it?”
“He did.”
“Good.”
Then she started telling me how Moonlight had recently discovered a secret island populated entirely by talking foxes.
And that was that.
At least for the moment.
I had expected something larger.
Tears.
Confusion.
A dramatic emotional shift.
Instead Mia absorbed the information the way children often absorbed enormous truths.
May you like
One piece at a time.
Then returned to breakfast.
