“Emily, I swear I didn’t know,” she cried. “Mark never told me about the allergy.”
And strangely enough…
I believed her.
She looked horrified.
Destroyed.
“He said Ava loved strawberries,” she whispered. “I thought I was doing something nice.”
The real betrayal belonged to Mark.
He brought another woman into our daughter’s life behind my back.
Then after Ava died, he hid the truth while standing beside her tiny white casket pretending to grieve honestly.
When I came home that night, Mark sat waiting at the kitchen table looking smaller than I’d ever seen him.
“I never stopped loving Ava,” he whispered.
I stared at him for a very long time.
Then finally answered honestly.
“I think you loved being seen as a good father more than you loved paying attention.”
He broke down crying after that.
But I felt strangely calm.
Because for days I believed there was some impossible mystery surrounding Ava’s death.
In reality, it came down to something painfully ordinary.
Selfishness.
Distraction.
Lies.
