Chapter 15
My mother was harder.
Lucia did not apologize for nearly a year.
She called the consequences disrespect.
She told relatives I had become controlled by children.
Fine.
Then Milo sent her a drawing.
Accidentally.
He had drawn everyone he remembered at dinner.
Clara.
Me.
Elena with angel wings because apparently that was how he imagined death.
Teresa.
Even Victor.
No Lucia.
She saw the drawing at Teresa’s house.
Something broke.
Not because exclusion itself was punishment.
Because for the first time, the matriarch who organized everyone’s place discovered a child’s emotional world could exist without arranging itself around her.
She requested a meeting.
Not with Milo.
With me.
Good start.
“I thought he would remember me.”
“He does.”
“Then why wasn’t I there?”
I looked at her.
“Maybe he didn’t feel like drawing you.”
That hurt.
Uncertainty again.
She hated it.
“I’m his grandmother.”
“Yes.”
“Does that mean nothing?”
“No.”
“It means relationship.”
Pause.
“Not guaranteed closeness.”
She looked exhausted.
Then finally:
“I was wrong.”
I waited.
She glared.
“You’re enjoying this.”
“A little.”
She almost smiled.
Good.
Then she became serious.
“I was wrong to take him.”
Better.
“To plan to take him.”
I nodded.
“To use Clara.”
Better.
“To use your name.”
Better.
Then the hardest:
“To think Luca would have survived if I had made him harder.”
Silence.
There.
My brother.
The ghost beneath everything.
Lucia cried.
Not delicately.
“I couldn’t save him.”
“No.”
“So I thought if Milo was prepared—”
“I know.”
I took her hand.
Understanding.
Not absolution.
“You don’t get Luca back by changing Milo.”
May you like
She nodded.
For the first time, she believed me.
