Chapter 9
Leah’s birthday came in June.
In other years, I had tried to fill the day with plans so Rosie wouldn’t notice how much I missed her mother. Dr. Ellis had helped me understand that Rosie noticed anyway. This year, I asked what she wanted to do.
“Can we make Mom’s lemon cake?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“And invite Lena and Daniel?”
“Of course.”
“Grandma too?”
I looked at her.
“You want her here?”
“For cake. She can go home after.”
I called Mom and told her exactly what Rosie had asked. She said she would come and stay only as long as Rosie wanted.
On Leah’s birthday, flour covered our kitchen counter. Rosie insisted on cracking the eggs herself. One shell fell into the bowl, and Daniel spent five minutes trying to fish it out while she laughed at him.
Lena arrived carrying a card she had made for Rosie. Inside was a photograph of Leah teaching her to decorate cookies years earlier. Rosie studied it for a long time.
“Mom let you use the pink icing,” she said.
“She let me use too much of it,” Lena replied.
We put the photograph beside the cake.
Mom came in the afternoon. She stopped just inside the doorway until Rosie waved her over. She helped set the table and told us a story about Leah getting lost on a family walk because she had followed a dog she wanted to befriend.
“She found her way back,” Mom said. “She brought the dog’s owner with her, and they were both laughing.”
I remembered Leah telling that story. Rosie asked for every detail. Mom gave them to her.
After cake, Rosie took Mom to see the sunflowers. They were taller than the fence now. I watched from the kitchen window as Rosie pointed to the one she had planted first.
Mom returned when Rosie went to play with Lena.
“Thank you for letting me come,” she said.
“Rosie wanted you here.”
“I know.” She looked toward the yard. “I’m going to keep earning her trust.”
“That’s up to her, and it will take time.”
“I understand.”
She went home as Rosie had planned. My daughter waved from the porch and then ran back to Lena.
Later, Dad sent me a letter. He wrote that he regretted throwing the glass and that he missed Rosie. He also said he hoped I would stop telling people his family had harmed her.
I read it twice and put it away.
He could regret frightening us and still refuse to face the rest. I did not show Rosie the letter. If he ever wanted a relationship with her, he would have to accept what she had lived through and respect what she needed. He had not done that.
Bethany sent no message. The restrictions on contact remained. Lena continued seeing her mother only through arrangements made with Aaron and the people helping their family. She told me she had said exactly how angry she was.
“I cried afterward,” Lena admitted.
“You can be angry and still grieve,” I said.
She looked across the yard at Rosie.
“I miss who I thought Mom was.”
I sat beside her until Rosie called us to inspect a sunflower head.
Summer gave us more easy days. Rosie went back to sleeping through most nights. She still wanted her lamp on, and I still checked the locks, but she no longer followed me from room to room.
One morning, she announced she would pour her own cereal. She climbed carefully onto her small kitchen stool, reached for the box, and filled her bowl without spilling much.
“See?” she said.
“I see.”
“I can do it.”
“You can.”
She carried the bowl to the table and sat down with a proud little smile.
At preschool, Miss Olivia told me Rosie had comforted a younger child who was afraid to enter the classroom. Rosie held the child’s hand and walked in with her. I listened while Miss Olivia described it, feeling pride spread through me.
That night, I told Rosie what her teacher had said.
“She was scared,” Rosie explained. “I knew where Miss Olivia was.”
“You helped her find someone she trusted.”
May you like
Rosie nodded and went back to coloring.
I did not tell her she was brave because she no longer felt afraid. She still had hard moments. She was brave because she was beginning to believe she could ask for help and receive it.
