After another block of quiet walking, I squeeze her hand lightly. “You okay, bug?”
“Yeah…” Elle nods once, walks another few steps in silence, then looks up at me. “Was that lady really my mom?”
My steps falter for a moment, and I take a breath, considering what to say. But honesty has always been the most important thing to me, especially when it comes to my daughter.
I nod, glancing down at her. “Yeah.”
She considers me, then looks down at the pavement as we keep walking. “I don’t think she knows penguins take turns looking after the egg.”
I hate that she’s right. And I hate that ten minutes across a café table was enough for her to know it.
“No,” I say quietly. “She doesn’t.”
Her fingers tighten around mine. “Penny knows.”
“Yeah, bug.” My voice comes out rougher than I want it to, and I have to look away for a second. “Penny knows.”
Cars hum past on the road beside us, and somewhere down the block, a dog barks behind a fence.
But my five-year-old walks silently, and I hate how loud that feels.
***
The park the following Saturday feels colder than it should for Spring. Elle’s been quieter since Flora’s.
The penguin facts dried up first. Penny even tried leaving Dr. Dahlia running in the background while she packed lunches each morning, and I tried asking whether emperor penguins or rockhoppers would win in a hockey fight.
Usually that kind of question would’ve earned me a ten-minute lecture and at least one deeply judgmental sigh. Instead, Elle had just shrugged and kept coloring.
I look at my watch as wind skims across the grass, and Penny jogs the outer loop of the park, her bright blue athletic wear flashing between trees every few minutes. She lifts a hand in an easy wave when she spots us, and Gus gallops behind her, distracted by a bird or a squirrel every few meters.
“Is she coming again?” Elle asks as she climbs the ladder to the slide.
“She said she would.”
“Is she late?”
“Yeah.”
Stacey arrives thirteen minutes later.
“Traffic was backed up for miles,” she says breathlessly.
Same excuse, different day. And still a lie. There’s no traffic this time of day in Maplewood, not in the way she’s suggesting.
Elle climbs down slowly when she sees her.
“Hello.”
“Hi, bab—” Stacey stops herself. “Hi. I brought you this.”
She hands Elle a juice box.
“Oh.” Elle studies it. “Thank you.”
She doesn’t like that juice and hasn’t in years, but she holds it carefully and uses her manners anyway.
A hard kind of pride settles in my chest because my kid has more manners and emotional intelligence than the adult she’s currently sitting down next to.
