“He tried to. But I’m okay now. We’re okay.”
Sophie frowned, processing this.
“Do I have a daddy at all?”
“You have me,” I said. “And Aunt Evelyn. And Mrs. Chen. And Marcus. You have so many people who love you.”
“But no daddy.”
“No daddy,” I confirmed gently. “But that doesn’t mean you’re missing anything. You have everything you need.”
Sophie considered this.
Then she threw her arms around my neck.
“I love you, Mama.”
“I love you too, baby girl.”
She wriggled out of my lap and went back to digging in the dirt, satisfied.
And I realized that she was going to be okay.
Better than okay.
Because she would grow up knowing she was loved, protected, valued for exactly who she was.
She wouldn’t carry my wounds.
She wouldn’t inherit my trauma.
She would just be Sophie.
Happy. Safe. Free.
That summer, Katherine called with unexpected news.
“Richard’s dying,” she said without preamble. “Pancreatic cancer. He has maybe three months.”
I was silent.
“He’s asking to see you,” Katherine continued. “And Sophie.”
“No.”
“I figured. But I had to tell you.”
“Does he really think—after everything—that I’d bring my daughter to see him?”
“I think he’s desperate. And dying.” Katherine paused. “You don’t owe him anything, Amelia.”
“I know.”
“But if you need closure—”
“I have closure,” I said firmly. “He’s my past. Sophie is my future. He doesn’t get to be part of that.”
“Okay. I’ll tell his lawyer.”
After we hung up, I sat for a long time in the quiet house.
Part of me—a small, old part—wondered if I should go.
If I should let him see Sophie, just once.
If I should give him that peace.
But then I thought about the woman falling from a helicopter.
The woman fighting for her life and her daughter’s life.
The woman who’d rebuilt everything from nothing.
That woman didn’t owe Richard anything.
Not even forgiveness.
So I didn’t go.
And when Katherine called six weeks later to tell me he’d died, I felt nothing.
No grief. No relief. No anger.
Just nothing.
He was gone.
And my life went on.
Sophie started preschool that fall.
She made friends easily, her bright laugh filling the car on the drive home every day.
“Mama, I painted a rainbow!”
“Mama, we learned a song about frogs!”
“Mama, can Emily come over to play?”
