Chapter 10: What Normal Looks Like Now
Emma's teacher was a young woman named Miss Farrow who had kind eyes and kept a jar of colored pencils on her desk that students were allowed to use whenever they wanted.
She stopped Daniel at the classroom door one afternoon, three weeks after the hearing.
"I wanted you to know," Miss Farrow said quietly, "that Emma has been different lately."
Daniel looked at her.
"Different how?"
"Lighter." Miss Farrow paused, choosing the word carefully.
"She laughs more in class.
She put her hand up twice last week to answer questions — she never used to do that.
She used to watch the other children do it instead."
Daniel looked through the small window in the classroom door.
Emma was at her table with two other girls, all three of them bent over something with great seriousness.
"She told me her dad makes really good chips," Miss Farrow added.
"Shop-bought," Daniel said.
"I just heat them up."
Miss Farrow smiled.
"She doesn't know that."
He picked Emma up and they walked to the car.
Emma had a drawing in her hand — another one, this time of what appeared to be a very large dog.
"We don't have a dog," Daniel said.
"I know.
I'm practicing for when we get one."
"We're not getting a dog."
"Not yet," Emma said cheerfully.
The full welfare report arrived on a Friday morning.
Rachel called him before he'd finished his first coffee.
"The report is thorough and it's clear," she said.
"The welfare officer recommends that Emma remain in your primary care.
She recommends that Victoria's contact continue in a supervised setting for a minimum of six months, with a review at that point conditional on Victoria engaging with a parenting program and individual therapy."
"Is Victoria required to do those things?"
"The court will make them a condition of any future contact expansion.
If she doesn't comply, supervised contact stays as it is."
"And if she does comply?"
"Then in six months there's a review.
The goal, long-term, is a relationship between Emma and Victoria that is safe.
That's what the welfare officer is working toward."
Daniel sat with that for a moment.
"Is that possible?" he asked.
"A safe relationship?"
"I don't know," Rachel said honestly.
"That depends on Victoria.
What she does next.
Whether she's actually willing to look at what happened and change it."
He thought about Victoria in the corridor after the hearing.
*This isn't over.* The tight voice.
The pointed finger.
"The children's services caseworker will stay involved for the next three months," Rachel continued.
"You'll have regular check-ins.
Emma will have access to a play therapist if she wants it."
"She asked me last week if she could go to a club after school," Daniel said.
"Art club."
"Sign her up."
"I already did."
Rachel was quiet for a moment.
"You're doing well, Daniel."
"I'm just trying to keep things normal."
"That's exactly right," she said.
"That's exactly what she needs."
He ended the call and looked at the welfare report on the table.
Forty-three pages.
Emma's name appeared on almost every one of them.
He closed it and put it in the folder Rachel had given him.
Then he went upstairs to wake Emma for school.
She was already awake, sitting up in bed with a book open on her knees, her yellow cardigan on over her pajamas.
"I've been reading," she announced.
"I can see that."
"It's about a dog who solves mysteries."
"Of course it is."
She looked at him with her steady eyes.
"Are things going to be okay, Daddy?"
He sat on the edge of her bed.
"Yes," he said.
"Things are going to be okay."
She considered this with the seriousness she gave most things.
"Okay," she said.
And went back to her book.
He sat there for a moment longer, watching her read.
The morning light came through the curtains the way it always did.
The house made its ordinary sounds around them.
Emma turned a page.
He didn't move.
He just sat there, in the quiet, ordinary morning, and let it be enough.
---
*A child who learns to protect a parent from pain — and a parent who finally chooses to protect the child instead.
Sometimes love means being brave enough to see what's right in front of you.*
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