Part 11: The Questions
Mia turned thirteen in the spring.
She was no longer the little girl who cried herself to sleep after nightmares. She had grown taller, her voice had changed, and she had started asking questions that Julia wasn’t always ready to answer.
One evening, while they were having dinner, Mia put down her fork and looked at her mother seriously.
Mia
“Mom, why don’t we ever talk about Dad?”
Julia paused, her hand still holding the glass of water.
Julia
“What do you want to know?”
Mia hesitated, then asked the question she had clearly been thinking about for a while.
Mia
“Did he ever love us? Or was he always going to choose Grandma over us?”
Julia put the glass down carefully. She had spent years protecting Mia from the full truth, but she also knew her daughter was old enough now to hear some of it.
Julia
“He loved you, Mia. In his own way. But he loved his mother more. Or maybe he was just too afraid to stand up to her. I don’t know which one is worse.”
Mia was quiet for a long time.
Mia
“Sometimes I hate him. Is that bad?”
Julia reached across the table and took her daughter’s hand.
Julia
“No. It’s not bad. But I don’t want you to carry hate around for the rest of your life either. Hate is heavy. And you’ve already carried enough.”
Mia looked down at her plate.
Mia
“Ethan is nice. He never makes me feel like I’m in the way.”
Julia smiled softly.
Julia
“Ethan is a good man. But even if he wasn’t in our lives, you would still be the most important thing to me. That will never change.”
Mia nodded, but Julia could see there were still many questions left unspoken.
May you like
That night, after Mia went to bed, Julia sat on the balcony alone and thought about David for the first time in months. She wondered where he was, what his life looked like now, and whether he ever thought about the daughter he had lost.
She didn’t feel anger anymore. Just a quiet sadness for the man who had chosen the wrong side and lost everything because of it.
