Page 135 of Scars and Crowns

"No, you don't."

"I understand that you were twenty one years old." My voice breaks slightly. "Alone in a city far from home. You had just lost your mother. You had been hurt in a way nobody should ever have to experience. You were terrified, and somehow you still got up every morning and took care of a child."

I wipe one tear away with my thumb. "That doesn't make you a bad mother." She stares at me. "It makes you human . . . and so brave." Her lower lip trembles. "You think loving Sara means you were never allowed to grieve what happened to you." She goes completely still. "You were." I hold her face more gently. "You were allowed to hate what happened. You were allowed to wish it had never happened. You were allowed to look at your baby and feel love while also feeling grief for the reason she was in your arms."

Her eyes close. "Those feelings don't cancel each other out." I swallow hard. "And none of them make you responsible for what he did to you."

A sob escapes her. I pull her against me. She comes willingly this time, collapsing into my chest as though she has finally run out of strength to hold herself upright. I wrap both arms around her. "Look at Sara," I whisper into her hair. "Really look at her." She sniffles against my shirt. "That little girl has never once doubted that she is loved."

I close my eyes. "I've watched her run to you when she's scared. I've watched her climb into your lap when she's tired. I've watched her look for you across a room just to make sure you're there." My voice thickens. "That child knows exactly how loved she is." I press my lips against her hair. "And she knows it because of you."

She cries harder. I hold her tighter. "Whatever thoughts you had when you were hurting don't erase the five years that came after them. They don't erase every meal you made, every fever you sat through, every night you stayed awake when she was sick, every time you put her needs before your own."

I pull back enough to look at her. "You built her life." Her eyes search mine. "You did that." For a moment, neither of us speaks. Then I think about the man inside. The man I watched laughing ten minutes ago. The man who apparently walked into this room tonight wearing an expensive suit as though he had never destroyed a girl's sense of safety.

Something vicious moves through me. I want to go back inside. I want to find him. I want to put my hands around his throat and make him understand exactly what he did.

But I don't. Because Anamika is still shaking in my arms. Because tonight isn't about him.

It's about her.

And if I let my anger take over now, I will make her confession about my rage instead of her pain. So I stay. I hold her. And I listen. "I'm sorry," I whisper. "I should have known."

Her head lifts. "You couldn't."

"I should have looked for you."

Her eyes soften with something almost like disbelief. "You didn't know where I was."

"I could have found you."

"You were respecting my choice."

"I told myself I was." My voice catches. "Maybe I was." I look down at our hands. "But I think part of me was afraid."

"Afraid of what?"

"That I'd find you and you'd tell me you didn't need me." Her expression crumples. "And I was too proud to risk hearing it." A tear slips down my cheek before I can stop it. "I hate that."

She reaches up and wipes it away. "You didn't know."

"I know." I turn my face into her palm for a moment. "But knowing doesn't make me wish I had done things differently."

Her fingers tremble against my cheek. "I should have come looking." I close my eyes. "I should have found you."

She shakes her head. "You can't change it."

"No."

I open my eyes again. "But I can change what happens from now on." Something shifts in her face. I pull her back against my chest. "You don't have to carry this by yourself anymore."

Her arms slowly come around me. "I don't know how not to."

"Then we'll learn." I kiss the top of her head. "Together."

She cries quietly against me. I let her.

The gala is still happening behind those doors. The music is still playing. People are still laughing beneath chandeliers that cost more than most families earn in a lifetime. None of it matters.