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"I wouldn't be protection enough for her?"
I'd severely misjudged her objections. "Wait, you're mad that it's El-Mudad and not you?"
"I'm not mad," she corrected me. "I'm disappointed."
We sat in an uncomfortable moment of silence.
"Sorry," she said. "That sounded rather parental, didn't it?"
"Cliché and parental." Hey, I was still smarting over her digs from the intervention.
"I didn't mean it that way. What I meant to say was, I'm disappointed that the three of you didn't think to protect my legal rights to my granddaughter. If something happens to you and Neil, where does it leave me? El-Mudad would have no obligation to share her. And he doesn't like me," she reminded me.
"He doesn't like you yet. He just doesn't know you. And he has to get through all his jealous, possessive of Neil stuff first. But family is important to him." I hesitated because I was about to make an offer that absolutely had to be made but hadn't been discussed yet. "But we'll work out a visitation schedule. A legally binding one, through a mediator or an arbitrator. I'm not well-versed in law stuff. You won't have any reason to fear that Olivia won't be a part of your life."
"I suggested that," she reminded me.
"You did. But you were with Laurence. That was the only reason we ever kept Olivia away from you. We didn't know what she would be exposed to or if she would be in danger." We probably should have explained that as soon as she'd made up her mind to leave him.
"Was that the only reason?" she asked.
I nodded firmly. "All we ever wanted out of this was for you to be safe and for you to be able to see Olivia again."
"If El-Mudad adopts Olivia, will she..." Valerie's eyes filled with tears that she tried to blink back. "Will she call him daddy?"
I shrugged. "I don't know. But I do know that we will never let Olivia forget Michael or Emma. We talk about them all the time. She asks about them, and I swear, they are as real to her as we could make them for a four-year-old."
“If she does… I won’t mind.” The sentence was like a pronouncement as if Valerie had any control over the events. Sometimes, she was so like Neil that I detested myself for disliking her. “Neil is her grandfather. She needs him in that role.”
“I agree.” It felt as though my feet finally rested on the common ground we used to tread after Emma and Michael’s death. "Rashida calls Neil daddy, though."
Valerie smiled tenderly at that. "I'm sure he loves having the girls there. As much as he blames himself for working too much with Emma, he was an excellent father. In most aspects.” She didn’t have to outline his flaws; we both knew he’d been overprotective and old-fashioned when it came to his daughter’s love life.
The conversation stalled, and Valerie twisted the wedding band she still wore. “Have you told Olivia anything yet? About what happened?”
"She knows you're moving in. We haven't said anything else to her about it." I shrugged helplessly. "We're not sure what, exactly, to tell her about Laurence."
Valerie nodded in genuine sympathy. "How do you explain domestic violence to a child?"
"My suggestion was, to be honest about it. She knows rules. She knows people aren't supposed to hit or yell or say mean things. The more difficult part will be trying to explain that she won't ever see him again." If someone had told me at age four that someone I loved and was used to being around just straight up couldn't see me anymore, I would have blamed myself.
"She's going to feel so...betrayed," Valerie said, pausing to search for the word. A word that I was sure had been rolling around her brain for a long, long time.
"She will. But we'll tell her that not all people who seem good are good and that you're brilliant and brave for leaving someone who treated you that way." I swallowed a sudden lump that rose in my throat. "And she'll know that it's not her fault. We'll make sure she knows that you didn’t reject her."
"When can I see her?"
Valerie's question came out so suddenly that I didn't have time to brace myself for the bleak desperation that suddenly transformed her face. I stammered out, "I-I don't know?"
"You'll have to talk that over with Neil?"
There was an edge to her tone that I didn't care for.
"I don't think that's unreasonable. She's his granddaughter." Now, there was an edge to my tone that I didn't care for. I didn't want to be mean to Valerie. I hadn't come down to pick a fight. I think that was what worried Neil most about me having any interaction with Valerie at this crucial time. He was afraid we would clash, and she would leave. Under any other circumstances, that would make me feel furious and patronized, but he did have a point. Just because she'd let us help her didn't mean that all was forgiven on both sides.
