Page 142 of Fighting Chance

“Is Layla my new mom?”

My body freezes, the air thickening, the sounds outside falling eerily quiet as if even the trees and animals in the backyard are listening.

The back of my eyes burn as I slowly take a seat on her bed. I need to talk, need to do fuckingsomething, but I’m stunned, sucker punched.

Not only by the sound of her rough and unused voice but the question… My god, the question has knocked the air from my lungs.

A mere two hours ago I was on the side of the road breaking down over Emmy not speaking, but now that she has, instead of feeling happy and grateful, I can feel my face falling, unable to hide my heartbreak.

How do I handle this? What if I say the wrong thing?

A small voice pipes up through my panic,What would you have wanted to hear when you were little?

It takes some time to clear my throat. “No, sweetheart, Layla is a close friend, like family,” I say, because family is more than blood. Her eyes hold mine as I gently continue, “But she’s not your mom.”

Her little brows pull down, a frown marring her smooth skin.

My heart stutters as I ask, “D-do you remember your mom?”

She seems to shrink away as she nods her head slowly.

Holy shit. Holy fucking shit.

On the outside I hope I look as composed as I’m forcing myself to act because internally, I’m freaking the fuck out. She hasn’t once acknowledged her mom. This is the first little scrap she’s ever given me.

Do I keep going? Do I keep pushing and ask more questions?

I mean, she brought up the topic, but what if I hit a nerve or say the wrong thing? What if?—

Emmy erases that choice as she whispers, so softly I have to lean forward to catch it, “She was a bad mommy.”

My shoulders slump with the dead weight. Taking a steadying breath, the children’s psychology books, podcasts, and videos I’ve been listening to bombard my mind at once, swirling like a tornado with no end in sight.

I can’t fuck this moment up.

Validate her feelings.

Lead with open-ended questions.

Don’t put words in her mouth.

Don’t rush her.

“Emmy, I’m so sorry.” The emotion coating my words thicken my voice. “I wish I could go back and stop her. I wish I could’ve been there. I would have doneanythingto be there and protect you.”

If my dad suddenly came into the picture and saved me from my mom and the foster home, I think again, what would I have wanted to hear?

“Emmy, I need to tell you something very important,” I whisper, noting how she clings to my every word. I say the thing that I wished someone said to me all those years ago. “It’s not your fault you had a bad mommy.”

She frowns at that, clinging to her golden retriever teddy a little tighter. “But she said I was a bad girl.” Tears fill her eyes and her tiny chin quivers, making my heart shatter into a million pieces as her voice fills with emotion. “Bad girls have to be punished.”

The sentence is robotic, memorized—branded in her mind.

I can’t bear this, her little whimpers, the tears in her eyes, the tightness of her words.

I can’tfuckingbear it.

Scooping her into my arms, I hold her. I hold her because I can’t take it back, can’t erase the words from her mind, can’t erase the experience, her memories. If I could, I would in a heartbeat. I know how much it hurts, how debilitating it can be to know you were hated by the one person in this world biologically programmed to love you.