Page 81 of Sins of Innocence

"Wraith won't let anything happen to you."

"I'm really starting to believe that."

Sadie comes out of the dressing room wearing a pair of balloon pants and short sleeve midi tee. She's got high-tops partially unlaced on her feet that I've never seen before.

"They have a shoe department here?" More to the point, Sadie found it but I didn't.

"Get that look off your face and tell your daughter she looks fly," Ellies orders sotto voce.

"That looks great!" My smile for my daughter is genuine, even if the mom guilt is hitting me hard.

"Yeah?" She chews her bottom lip and looks at her backside in the mirror over her shoulder. "You don't think they'd look better on somebody taller?"

Which is her roundabout way of asking if I think they make her look fat. I hate our fat phobic culture and the anti real bodies messaging on social media.

"They couldn't look better on anyone else because they look perfect on you." I know my daughter won't believe my words.

I'm her mom. So, my opinion doesn't count. But she still needs to hear. She needs my voice in her head combatting all the others.

"Your mom's right," Ellie chimes in. "The whole outfit is fly. Wraith is going to have to keep his eye on the boys at the park."

Disneyland. If there's a kid who doesn't want to go, I don't know them.

Being able to leave the state and take my girls is just one more thing to thank Kieran for.

"Why do you call him Wraith?" Sadie asks her aunt as mom, Neeve and Joy come out of the fitting rooms too.

Mom isn't trying anything on in there, of course. But it's just our policy never to let the girls go into places like bathrooms and changing rooms alone. And not because we're afraid of trans women showing up.

There are plenty of predatory adult men to worry about. And teenage boys too apparently.

I'm still so angry about what happened to Sadie, I have to work hard to hide the rage when I look at her. She's such a sweet girl. So innocent.

But she'll never look at boys or men the same way again. The part of her innocence that believes she's safe in a place that's supposed to be safe, that people who are supposed to be decent actually are? That's gone.

I was a lot older when I found that out. Six years ago, to be exact. Until then, I still thought most people were basically good.

Sometimes, I still do.

But those little jerks attacking Sadie reminded me kids can be just as evil as adults if they aren't taught any better.

We ooh and ahh over Joy and Neeve before Ellie answers Sadie's question about Kieran. "He's like a ghost when he wants to be."

"He said that but why do you call him Wraith, Aunt Ellie?"

Ellie nods like now she understands the question. "Because that's what everyone at work calls him."

"Why does mom call him Kieran?" Sadie pushes.

I answer before Ellie can open her mouth. "Because I'm not dating a ghost. I'm dating a man."

That puts a smile on my daughter's face. "Oh."

She likes that I see Kieran differently than her adopted aunt does. It helps her to believe in this fake relationship we're selling. She was worried he had a nickname I didn't know.

Then it hits me. She heard me get mad at him about how he told me his name was Kieran. Does she believe our narrative? Or is she feeling better about it because her beloved aunt so clearly approves?

"Do you think he wants us to call him Wraith?" Neeve asks, her brows scrunched.