Chapter 6 - EMMA TOLD ME WHAT CHRISTMAS HAD BEEN LIKE BEFORE
Emma did not talk much about her mother during the first weeks.
She talked about ordinary things.
School.
Her friend Ava.
Whether my pancakes were better than her father’s had been.
Which side of the guest room should become the dinosaur side and which should become the art side.
Then one night she asked whether she was allowed to tell me something if it made Mom look bad.
I turned off the television.
“You’re allowed to tell me anything.”
“Even about family?”
“Especially about family.”
That answer seemed to surprise her.
Lauren had taught her a different rule.
Emma slowly revealed that Christmas had been difficult for years.
If she cried because she missed her father, Lauren called her ungrateful.
If she asked to visit Kevin’s grave, Lauren said she was trying to make everyone sad.
If Emma did not smile in photographs, Lauren threatened to cancel gifts.
One year, when Emma was seven, Lauren packed away the Christmas stockings after an argument and told her Emma had “killed the mood.”
The next morning, she put them back.
To an adult, that might look like one dramatic evening.
To a seven-year-old, it taught something much larger.
Love could disappear if your feelings became inconvenient.
That explained why Emma apologized constantly.
Sorry for being hungry.
Sorry for crying.
Sorry for needing the bathroom during a drive.
Sorry for waking me after a nightmare.
One morning I dropped a bowl.
Emma immediately said, “I’m sorry.”
I stared at her.
“You didn’t drop it.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you apologizing?”
She shrugged.
That broke my heart more quietly than the bus stop had.
I found a child therapist experienced in grief and family trauma.
The first week, Emma barely spoke.
The third week, she drew Christmas as a house with every window dark except one.
“What’s the light?” I asked later when she showed me.
“My room.”
“Why?”
“Because I was awake.”
That picture stayed on my refrigerator for months.
May you like
Not because it was pretty.
Because slowly, more windows began appearing in her drawings.
