Mia looked up at Adrian with the solemn expression she usually reserved for questions about dinosaurs, dessert, and whether clouds could get lonely.
“Because Mommy already knows how to be my mommy,” she said. “But she has to do everything else too.”
My heart gave one painful thud.
“Mia—”
“And sometimes,” she continued, completely unaware that half the executive floor had gone still around us, “she talks to Daddy’s picture when she thinks I’m sleeping.”
The embarrassment vanished so quickly it almost left me dizzy.
Adrian’s expression changed.
Not into pity.
I would have hated pity.
Instead, something quiet settled over his face.
Mia twisted Gerald the elephant by one floppy ear.
“She tells him things,” she explained. “Like when I lost my tooth. And when the sink broke. And when she’s tired.”
My throat tightened.
Adrian lowered himself to Mia’s height again.
“And you think your mother needs someone because she gets tired?”
Mia considered this.
“No. Mommy can do everything.”
Despite myself, I almost laughed.
That was exactly the answer she had heard from me too many times.
Then she added, “But people who can do everything still get lonely.”
No six-year-old had any business delivering a sentence that devastating before ten in the morning.
I crouched beside her.
“Sweetheart, that’s enough.”
Mia studied my face and immediately seemed to understand that she had crossed into grown-up territory.
Her hand slipped into mine.
“Am I in trouble?”
“No.”
I squeezed her fingers.
“But we are going to have a very serious conversation about leaving my office.”
What happened next changed everything… FULL STORY on the next page.
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