Chapter 16
Mia stopped checking my mouth.
That took longer than expected.
For weeks, whenever she saw me drinking something blue-tinted, dark, sparkling, anything unfamiliar, she stared.
Once she climbed onto a chair.
“Open.”
I almost laughed.
Anna looked mortified.
I obeyed.
Mia inspected my tongue.
“Good.”
Then returned to coloring.
No one corrected her.
Eventually the habit faded.
One afternoon she saw me drinking at lunch and did nothing.
I noticed.
Anna noticed.
Neither said anything.
That was progress.
Safety becoming boring.
The best kind.
Her mother’s hands healed too.
The redness faded.
One day Mia held Anna’s palms.
“Not angry hands.”
Anna smiled.
“What?”
“Before red.”
Children name things strangely.
I understood.
The marks on Anna’s hands had been part of Celeste’s cover story.
May you like
Now they were simply hands again.
That mattered more than anyone outside the family would understand.
