I sat beside her.
“You have to clean it first.”
She reluctantly slid the shoe toward me.
I scraped away the old adhesive.
“Otherwise it won’t hold.”
For the next ten minutes, nobody mentioned Thomas.
Nobody mentioned money.
I simply showed a girl how to repair a shoe.
And somewhere in the middle of it, I realized the trap had finally closed.
***
Later, I found Caroline alone.
“Why did you call yourself his real daughter?” I asked.
She looked ashamed.
“I was jealous.”
“Of me?”
“He talked about you constantly near the end.”
I waited.
“Sometimes I wondered if loving me started because he was trying to become the father he should’ve been to you.”
I laughed bitterly.
Part of me wanted to say she had nothing to complain about.
She’d had the father I’d spent my childhood waiting for.
But looking at her, I knew it wasn’t that simple.
“I knew he loved me,” Caroline continued. “But sometimes I felt like I was not enough.”
I sat beside her.
For the first time, neither of us had anything to defend.
Before leaving, I went back to Thomas’s room.
The empty bed looked enormous.
For most of my life, I’d wondered what had been wrong with the six-year-old girl nobody came back for.
I finally said it aloud.
“There wasn’t anything wrong with me.”
Caroline stood quietly behind me.
Thomas had been afraid.
He had failed.
Those were facts about him.
Not me.
I dragged my suitcase toward the doorway.
For most of my childhood, a packed bag meant somebody else had decided where I was going next.
This time, the choice belonged to me.
I set the suitcase down.
“What time’s breakfast?” I asked Caroline.
“Eight.”
I gave her a small smile.
“Scrambled eggs, coffee, maybe a slice of toast. I’m easy.”
Caroline laughed through tears.
Forgiving Thomas wasn’t on the table.
Taking his money wasn’t the point.
The board was still waiting for my answer.
The only thing that had changed was my decision not to leave.
And for once, the packed bag could wait.
Nobody else had decided where I belonged this time.
I had.
