“I don’t think you understand what my job is,” I said.
“I understand you believe your job must always come first.”
“That’s not fair, Winnie.”
“No,” she said. “But I think it’s accurate.”
I looked away, jaw tight. “I provide for them. This house, their school, their lessons, their future… All of that exists because I work. I don’t have the luxury of just deciding work calls don’t matter.”
“I didn’t say work calls don’t matter.”
“Then what are you saying?”
She took a moment. “I’m saying they noticed.”
I opened my mouth, then closed it.
A steady warmth filled Winnie’s eyes, but she didn’t back down. “They noticed when your phone rang. They noticed when you left. Bianca noticed when you came back after her song had already started.”
“She smiled at me from the stage.”
“Yes. Sometimes kids smile when they want to make the adult in the room feel better.”
“She said it was okay,” I added.
“Of course she did.”
I took a step back. “What does that mean?”
“It means she’s learned to make things easier for you.”
“That’s not?—”
“CJ puts on this joyful front so you won’t worry. Bianca acts indifferent so you won’t feel guilty. Billie becomes chaos personified because she’s too young to know what other role to perform.” Winnie picked her gloves up again. “All three of them are trying to protect you in their own ways, Conrad, and they shouldn’t have to.”
For a moment, I couldn’t speak. The room felt too warm.
I wanted to reject it outright. Wanted to tell her she’d known us for a month and had no right to walk into my life and start putting names on wounds. I wanted to remind her that she was employed here, that I was doing my best, that no one got to stand in my kitchen and explain my children to me as though I hadn’t been the one holding them when their mother died.
The worst part was that some deep, exhausted part of me knew she was right. I clenched my jaw, gripping the edge of the countertop.
“You think I don’t know I’m failing?” I asked.
Her facial expression changed to something gentler and more painful. “I think you’re afraid that if you stop moving, the whole family will collapse.”
That took the breath out of me.
“I know you love them deeply. However, I think you’ve mistaken providing for them with being present because one has measurable outcomes, while being present requires a kind of vulnerability you can’t schedule.”
I laughed once without humor. “That’s a lot to pull from one missed song.”
“It wasn’t one missed song.”
My throat tightened.
No.
Absolutely not.
