of them, and he was making sure that could not happen again. Lauren told Emma that missed birthdays hurt, but the adults would handle the repairs. It was not Emma's responsibility to explain why anyone had been absent.
Celeste sent one long letter a week later. She described the pressure of keeping up appearances and said she had never intended to frighten a child. She wrote that she believed Daniel's attachment to Hannah prevented their new family from forming. She admitted sending messages in his name because she thought Lauren would never respect boundaries otherwise. Daniel read the letter twice. He could acknowledge that Celeste felt frightened of being compared with someone who had died; he could not accept that fear as permission to isolate a little girl from her family. He sent a short reply ending the engagement, requesting that their remaining belongings be available for collection, and declining further personal contact. He did not ask Emma to forgive Celeste or to decide how the adults should proceed.
There were smaller losses. The website project was delayed, and some people who had known Daniel only through Celeste no longer answered his calls. For a few months he worked extra hours at Reed Cycles and lived more simply than he had during their engagement. Lauren helped paint Emma's old bedroom, and a neighbor brought over a secondhand dresser. When Daniel apologized for the smaller house, Emma looked around at the crooked drawings on the wall and asked if she could hang stars from the ceiling. He said yes. They cut them out of paper and tied them with thread. The room was not elegant. It was hers.
Daniel found a family counselor whose office had shelves of board games and beanbag chairs instead of imposing desks. Emma was suspicious of the first appointment. She asked whether the counselor would tell her that she was being ungrateful. Daniel assured her that the counselor's job was to help them talk, not to decide which adult deserved to be pleased. For several sessions, Emma answered mostly in shrugs. Eventually she told the counselor about hiding her mother's picture and about the fear that her father might leave if she made him too sad. Daniel listened without interrupting. When he apologized, the counselor encouraged him to name what he would do differently. He promised to ask more questions, believe her first answers, and stop treating difficult conversations as something that could always wait.