Chapter 12
Clara began checking every room Milo entered.
At first I thought she was being protective.
Then I realized she was afraid.
Birthday rooms.
Closets.
Stage curtains.
Even the laundry room.
She always looked for a second exit.
Eight years old.
Already scanning architecture because adults once planned to steal her brother through a floor.
I sat beside her one evening.
“You don’t have to guard him.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
She frowned.
“I saved him.”
“Yes.”
“If I wasn’t there—”
I stopped myself from interrupting.
Waited.
She finished.
“They would have taken him.”
True.
That was the problem.
I could not tell her she imagined the responsibility.
She had actually carried it.
So I said something else.
“You saved him once.”
She watched me.
“That does not make saving him your job forever.”
Her eyes filled.
“Then whose?”
“Mine.”
Pause.
“My guards.”
Another.
“Every adult who is supposed to keep both of you safe.”
She looked unconvinced.
Fair.
“Didn’t work last time.”
Eight-year-old precision.
“No.”
I nodded.
“It didn’t.”
No fake reassurance.
“What changes?”
Good question.
Access rules.
No adult moves either child between properties without direct confirmation.
No staged disappearance games.
No family member overrides assigned guards through seniority.
Clara listened.
Then asked:
“What if they lie again?”
“We keep listening when you tell us something feels wrong.”
That mattered most.
She had saved Milo because she knew adults might not believe her.
I wanted to change that.
“Even if I’m wrong?”
“Yes.”
She smiled faintly.
“Even if I say Victor is secretly a frog?”
“Then we investigate respectfully.”
She laughed.
Good.
Later she walked past the storage closet without checking inside.
I noticed.
May you like
Said nothing.
Safety should eventually become boring.
