Chapter 7: What Lisa Deserved to Know
We didn't tell Lisa that day.
We drove home from Barbara's in near silence, and Lisa was at Carrie's, and Brandon and I sat in the kitchen for two hours going through everything in that folder, reading Daniel's statement twice, looking up the case number on the family court website to confirm it was real.
It was real.
"He has a lawyer," Brandon said.
"I know."
"That means this is moving.
It's not just a letter he sent.
He's actually pursuing it."
"I know."
Brandon closed the folder.
"We need our own lawyer."
"Yes."
"And we need to tell Lisa something before she hears it from someone else."
I looked at him.
"She's seven."
"She's seven and she asked Barbara if she was going to be mean to her mom after today." He said it gently.
"She's not as young as we want her to be."
He was right.
I knew he was right.
I had known it since the garden.
We picked Lisa up from Carrie's at four.
She came out with a drawing she'd made — a house, four people, a dog we didn't have yet.
"That's us," she said, holding it up.
"I put a dog in because I think we should get one."
Brandon took the drawing very seriously.
"What kind of dog?"
"A big one."
"Noted."
We had dinner.
We let her watch one episode of her show.
Then Brandon said he'd do the dishes and I took Lisa upstairs for her bath.
She was in the water, arranging her plastic animals along the edge of the tub, when I sat down on the bath mat and said, "Can I tell you something?"
She looked at me.
"Is it bad?"
"It's complicated.
But I don't think it's bad."
She waited.
"You know how you've asked me before about your dad?
About why he's not around?"
Her hands went still on the plastic giraffe.
"I always told you he left before you were born and I didn't know where he was."
"Yeah."
"That was true.
But I found out recently that there was more to it.
That he didn't leave because he didn't want you." I kept my voice steady.
"He left because someone told him something that wasn't true.
And he believed it, and he went away, and he didn't know how to come back."
Lisa was quiet for a moment.
"What did they tell him?"
"They told him I didn't want him to be your dad."
"But you did?"
"I didn't know yet, when he left.
I didn't get to make that choice.
Someone made it for me."
She thought about this with the focused seriousness she brought to difficult things.
"Is he a bad person?" she asked.
"I don't think so.
I think he made a mistake.
He should have tried harder to talk to me.
But he was young, and he got confused, and he believed something that wasn't true."
"Does he know about me?"
"He does.
And he's asked if he could maybe meet you someday.
Not right away.
Only if you wanted to.
You don't have to do anything you don't want to do."
Lisa put the giraffe down.
She looked at the water.
"Would Brandon still be my dad?"
"Always," I said.
"That doesn't change.
Brandon is your dad.
This would just be — another person.
Someone who shares some of your story."
She nodded slowly.
"Can I think about it?"
"You can take as long as you want."
She picked the giraffe back up and walked it along the edge of the tub.
Then she said, without looking at me:
"I think Grandma Barbara was trying to make Brandon not marry you."
"Yes," I said.
"I think so too."
"It didn't work."
"No.
It didn't."
She looked up then, and gave me a small, private smile that looked so much like Brandon's it stopped my breath.
"Good," she said.
Later, after she was asleep, I stood in the hallway and let myself cry.
Not the kind that needs an audience.
Just the kind that comes when something has been held too long.
Brandon found me there.
He didn't say anything.
He just put his arms around me and held on.
Downstairs, my phone was ringing.
May you like
The screen read: Mom.
I let it ring.
