Chapter 6
I asked Julian one question the others did not expect.
“What did Avice tell you?”
He looked confused.
“About what?”
“Vanessa.”
Silence.
There.
My anger shifted.
Not because my son had planned the lie.
He had not.
Because he had been given warnings and chosen comfort.
Julian looked down.
“She said Vanessa didn’t like her drawings.”
“Anything else?”
“She said Vanessa locked the nursery when she was resting.”
“Anything else?”
He rubbed his face.
“Dad.”
“Anything else?”
His voice dropped.
“She said Vanessa told her not to touch the baby things.”
The fake baby’s things.
A nursery prepared around a lie.
“And what did you do?”
“I told her Vanessa was tired.”
Of course.
Another warning explained away.
“Did she tell you about the chair?”
“No.”
“Did she tell you she felt unwanted?”
Long silence.
“Yes.”
There.
I leaned back.
The room hurt differently now.
Julian had not forged a pregnancy.
He had done something more ordinary.
He had failed to believe a child because believing her would have threatened the future he wanted.
“You wanted the son badly enough to explain away your daughter.”
His face tightened.
“That’s not fair.”
“No.”
I held his gaze.
“What happened to Avice wasn’t fair.”
He looked away.
Good.
“I loved her.”
“Love is not the question.”
I spoke more quietly.
“Did you listen?”
Silence.
That was the wound he owned.
No Diane.
No Vanessa.
No Ethan.
His.
Julian sat down again.
“I thought she was jealous.”
“Who told you that?”
“Vanessa.”
Exactly.
The adults created a story around Avice before she had enough words to defend herself.
Jealous.
Needy.
Begging.
Spoiled.
Each label made the next warning easier to dismiss.
Then Julian whispered:
“I moved her seat last month.”
I froze.
“What?”
“At dinner.”
His eyes filled.
“Vanessa said the chair beside me made her feel like Avice wouldn’t accept the baby.”
I closed my eyes.
He had already begun rearranging his daughter for a child who did not exist.
When I opened them, Julian looked destroyed.
Good.
Not because I wanted my son broken.
May you like
Because guilt can either become change or another excuse.
His next choice mattered more than his pain.
