Chapter 19 - Maya Asks the Hardest Question
Three months after the dinner, Maya asked:
“Did Camille love me?”
Marcus had been washing dishes.
He stopped.
Of all the questions he had prepared for, this was the one he feared.
Maya sat at the kitchen island with homework.
“Why are you asking?”
“You always do that.”
“Do what?”
“Ask why instead of answering.”
Marcus dried his hands.
“Yes, I do.”
She waited.
Marcus sat across from her.
“I think Camille believed she loved you sometimes.”
Maya frowned.
“That’s confusing.”
“I know.”
“If you love someone, you don’t lock food.”
“No.”
“You don’t make them scared.”
“No.”
“So she didn’t.”
Marcus considered.
“You’re allowed to decide what love means to you.”
Maya picked at the corner of her worksheet.
“I think she liked me when I was easy.”
The statement was so precise Marcus almost forgot she was eight.
“What does easy mean?”
“When I didn’t need stuff.”
Marcus felt his chest tighten.
“Healthy love doesn’t disappear because you need something.”
“What if you need too much?”
“Children are supposed to need things.”
“All the time?”
“Yes. It’s honestly inconvenient.”
She smiled.
“Dad.”
“I’m serious. You needed diapers once. Horrible era.”
“Gross.”
“You cried at three in the morning.”
“I was a baby!”
“Exactly.”
She laughed.
Then became quiet.
“Do you ever wish it was just you and Camille?”
“No.”
“Never?”
Marcus knew children could detect overly clean answers.
So he told the truth.
“There were times I wished life were simpler.”
Her face changed.
He continued immediately.
“But simpler did not mean without you. Sometimes I wished there weren’t arguments. Or grief. Or work trips. Or bills. Adults sometimes wish problems would disappear. The mistake is deciding a person is the problem.”
Maya absorbed that.
“Camille thought I was the problem.”
“Yes.”
“Did you?”
Marcus looked at her.
“Sometimes I believed her when she said your behavior was causing problems.”
Maya’s eyes lowered.
“That was wrong.”
She looked up again.
“You believed her?”
“Yes.”
The word hurt to say.
But truth mattered more than protecting his image.
“I’m sorry.”
Maya was silent for so long Marcus feared he had damaged something.
Then she asked:
“Do you believe me now?”
“Yes.”
“What if I really do something wrong?”
“I can believe you did something wrong and still believe you.”
She considered this.
“So if I break a glass—”
“We clean it.”
“If I steal crackers?”
“We figure out why.”
“If I yell?”
“You’re still my daughter.”
“If I say I hate you?”
“That would hurt.”
“But?”
“You’re still my daughter.”
Maya nodded slowly.
“That’s better.”
That night Marcus wrote a new note and stuck it on the refrigerator beneath the old one.
The first still read:
MAYA DOES NOT NEED PERMISSION TO EAT WHEN SHE IS HUNGRY.
The second read:
BEING IN TROUBLE DOES NOT MEAN YOU STOP BELONGING.
Maya added a third herself.
DAD HAS TO BUY MORE SYRUP.
Marcus left all three.
The next week, the divorce became final.
Rachel called after the judge signed the decree.
“It’s done.”
Marcus waited for relief.
It came quietly.
“So that’s it?”
“Legally, the marriage is over.”
Marcus looked around the house.
The sentence felt enormous and surprisingly ordinary.
“Thank you.”
After hanging up, he sat on the edge of his bed.
He had loved Camille.
That remained true.
She had hurt Maya.
Also true.
Marcus had failed to notice.
True.
He had finally noticed.
True.
Human lives were not court filings.
Contradictory truths could occupy the same page.
A soft knock came at his door.
Maya stood there holding the heart-shaped waffle maker they had ordered.
“It came!”
Marcus laughed.
“Tomorrow?”
“No.”
“Maya, it’s nine-thirty.”
She held up the box.
“Emergency waffles.”
He thought of every rule Camille had used like a weapon.
Then he smiled.
“Emergency waffles.”
Downstairs, flour covered the counter.
The first waffle burned.
The second tore in half.
The third looked vaguely like a heart.
Maya covered it with strawberries.
“This one’s yours.”
“Why do I get the ugly one?”
“Because you’re the dad.”
Marcus took a bite.
May you like
It was terrible.
He ate all of it.
