“She asked if I wanted her to go away,” she said.
The birthday music kept playing from the speaker, bright and ridiculous.
Amelia looked directly at her mother. “She asked if I wanted her to go away so we could be a real family.”
Vanessa’s face changed by almost nothing. A tightening beside the mouth. A blink held a fraction too long.
Lucy’s father saw it.
“Why would she ask that?”
Amelia swallowed. “Because Mom told her I missed when it was just us. She told Lucy she was making everything harder by competing with me.”
“I never said that.”
“You did.” Lucy’s voice surprised all of them, including Lucy. It was barely above a whisper. “You said Dad already had enough to worry about.”
Her father’s eyes stayed on her.
Lucy pressed the paper crown flat against her skirt. “You said if I made him choose, I might not like what he picked.”
Silence settled over the table.
Vanessa reached for a glass of water, but her hand stopped before touching it. “That is not what I meant, and you know it.”
Lucy shook her head.
The motion made one of the crown’s paper points fold over.
Her father stood. For the first time that evening, he did not look toward Vanessa for an explanation. He looked around the room instead: the birthday decorations Amelia had chosen, the chair at the table where Lucy’s grandmother used to sit, the plastic fork at the kitchen counter, and the child who had learned to accept being moved without asking why.
Then he turned to Amelia.
“You said you had more to tell me.”
Amelia’s eyes filled. “I didn’t ask for her room.”
Vanessa’s chair scraped against the floor. “Sweetheart, stop.”
“I didn’t.” Amelia’s voice shook, but she kept going. “I didn’t ask for the blue bowl either. And I didn’t ask for the last pancake. Mom kept saying Lucy needed to learn to share, and I thought if I said something, she’d be mad at me too.”
Lucy looked up.
For weeks she had believed Amelia accepted those things because she wanted them. That was painful enough. Realizing Amelia had been afraid in a different way was stranger.
Her father leaned one hand against the back of a chair.
“Vanessa,” he said, “did you hit my daughter because she sat in a chair?”
Vanessa’s expression hardened. “I tapped her because she ignored me after I told her repeatedly—”
“You slapped her.” Amelia’s words came out fast now. “You slapped her before she was even all the way out of it.”
Vanessa stared at her daughter.
Something in that stare made Amelia shrink, and Lucy recognized the movement immediately.
Her father did too.
