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I peered down the hall. The boys went into Dustin’s room. Then, a few seconds later, they scurried across the hall to Cora’s.
I tip-toed down the hall until I was right outside Cora’s door. It was open, allowing me to hear everything inside. Asher and Brady followed behind me, pressed against the wall like really bad spies. It was tough to believe they were both Navy SEALs before this.
There was a crumpling sound like a candy wrapper, and then Cora whispered, “One for you, and one for you.”
I jumped around the corner and saw each boy with a Twix half in his hand. All three of them had deer-in-the-headlights stares.
They were caught red-handed.
“What’s going on here?” I demanded.
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Asher
I didn’t believe it until I saw it with my own eyes.
“Cora!” I demanded. “What are you doing?”
My daughter, the little person who I loved more than anyone else in the world, immediately started bawling. She threw herself onto her bed and buried her face in the pillows, too ashamed to even look at us.
Brady snatched the candy from the boys. “This isn’t for you, now is it? Come on, you two need some time-out.”
Heather and I shared a look, and then she gestured at the bed for me to proceed. I sat on the edge and gently rubbed Cora’s back. Her sobbing intensified, tiny little wails that made my chest hurt.
When the crying diminished, Heather said, “Cora? Can you explain yourself?”
My daughter slowly turned around and sat up in bed, but she wouldn’t look at either of us. “I don’t know.”
“I think you do know,” I said. “You need to tell us.”
“But you’re going to bemad,” she whined sullenly.
“Maybe,” Heather said. “But we’re mad right now. And we won’tstopbeing mad until you tell us everything. Why have you been giving your candy to your brothers?”
“Did they pressure you to do it?” I asked hopefully.
Cora wiped her eyes and shook her head. She still wouldn’t look at me. “I just wanted to be your little angel again.”
“Oh, sweetie,” I said, “youare. You never stopped being my little angel.”
“No,” she insisted. “Iwasthe good one, but then Micah and Dustin started being good. Then everyone talked about how goodtheywere being. Everyone stopped being nice to me, even though I had been good all along.” She finally looked up at me. “So I gave them my candy and told them to be bad. It felt nice to be thegoodone again.”
I shared a look with Heather.Of course. Cora had always gotten attention for how well-behaved she was, but as soon as her brothers were the same, she stopped getting special attention for it. So she bribed her brothers to misbehave.
My heart swelled with love and pain. “Oh, sweetie. I’m sorry if we have been giving the boys too much attention.”
I wrapped her in my arms and squeezed her tightly. Sometimes it shocked me how much I loved the tiny bundle in my arms. I would do anything for her. And I meananything.
Treating her with a little extra love and attention was an easy solution.
“Thank you for being honest with us,” Heather said. “We’re going to have to ground you. Do you know why?”
Cora nodded sadly. “For lying. And for giving candy to my brothers?”
“That’s right. No sweets for a week.” Heather kissed her on the crown of her head. “Now let’s get ready for bed.”
I went through the motions of bedtime like a zombie. Although I was glad the solution was a simple one, everything I thought about my daughter had been flipped upside-down. She had lied to me. I didn’t even think she wascapableof lying prior to that. Yeah, I know that’s naive, but that’s how I felt prior to tonight.
