“Why?”
Marissa thought.
“Because I thought if I did enough things for you, you would owe me the feeling I wanted.”
Ellie frowned.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It doesn’t.”
“Dad does stuff and I still get mad at him.”
Marissa smiled.
“That is very true.”
Ellie continued.
“Did you hate Mom?”
“No.”
“Were you jealous?”
“Yes.”
“Of a dead person?”
“Yes.”
Ellie looked genuinely puzzled.
Marissa laughed through tears.
“I know.”
“Mom couldn’t steal Dad.”
“No.”
“She was dead.”
“I know.”
“Then?”
Marissa looked at the child she had once treated as competition.
“Your father could love her without her asking anything from him.”
Ellie listened.
“I was alive.”
Marissa swallowed.
“I wanted proof.”
“Like what?”
“That he chose me.”
Ellie looked toward the door where Grant waited.
“He married you.”
“I know.”
“Wasn’t that enough?”
Marissa smiled painfully.
“It should have been.”
The meeting lasted forty-five minutes.
No dramatic reconciliation.
No hug.
At the end, Ellie said:
“I don’t want you to come home.”
Marissa nodded.
“I know.”
“But I can see you again.”
Her face changed.
“If you want.”
“I said I can.”
Marissa smiled.
“Right.”
They saw each other twice that year.
Then not again for eighteen months.
There was no need to force rhythm.
Relationships did not become healthy because adults demanded regularity.
Grant changed in less visible ways.
He began telling Ellie when he failed.
Not every business mistake.
Enough.
“I forgot your dentist appointment.”
“I know.”
“I told Rosa the wrong pickup time.”
“I know.”
“I signed a school form without reading it.”
Ellie stared.
“What did it say?”
“Luckily, field trip.”
“What if it was adoption?”
Grant laughed.
“That seems unlikely.”
“You always say read things.”
“Exactly.”
He learned that authority became safer when children saw it admit error before being caught.
At twelve, Ellie entered the kitchen one afternoon and found Grant eating cereal standing over the sink.
She stared.
“What?”
“That’s disgusting.”
“I have a call.”
“You tell me sit at the table.”
“I’m an adult.”
“That’s hypocrisy.”
Grant sighed.
He sat.
She smiled.
“Thank you.”
“Your grandmother has infected you.”
Otis died that winter.
Thirteen years old.
Ellie held his head in her lap at the veterinary clinic.
Grant sat beside her.
Afterward, they returned home with his collar and no dog.
The feeding station remained in the kitchen.
Two bowls.
One water.
One food.
Grant reached for the food bowl.