Livia stared at me.
“What did I do that made leaving feel safer than telling me the truth?”
Her mouth trembled.
“You made everything a test,” she said. “My grades. My clothes. My friends. Mitchell. Even my tone.”
“I thought I was guiding you.”
“When I found out I was pregnant, I wanted you. But I could already feel your disappointment.”
I looked at Rose.
Then at Livia.
Then at every person I had blamed.
“I was wrong,” I said. “I made you believe you had to disappear to be loved safely.”
I turned to Liam.
“And I made you carry a secret no son should have had to carry.”
Livia wiped her cheek with Rose’s blanket.
“If we try this,” she said, “Mitchell stays my husband. Natalie stays Rose’s grandmother. Liam is not punished. And you don’t get to be cruel to Mitchell because you’re hurt.”
