Chapter 9 - Claire’s question
Claire did not yell at me.
I almost wished she had.
She sat across from me at her kitchen table.
Leo was asleep upstairs.
“How many times has Helena watched him?”
I checked my phone.
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
I counted.
“Six.”
“In what period?”
“About five months.”
Claire closed her eyes.
“Did you ask me?”
“What?”
“Whether I was comfortable with that?”
“I didn’t think I needed permission during my parenting time.”
“You didn’t.”
She looked at me.
“But we agreed Maribel, Patricia, or one of us would be primary childcare.”
“I know.”
“Helena became childcare because it was convenient.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Family.”
Claire almost laughed.
There.
The answer sounded stupid aloud.
“She runs a mansion staff,” Claire said. “That does not make her a preschool teacher.”
“I know.”
“No. You know now.”
Fair.
She continued:
“Has Leo ever acted strange after staying with her?”
I thought.
Once he refused to sit at the dining table.
Once he cried when he spilled juice.
Once he said:
“Pay?”
after knocking over a toy truck.
I had laughed.
I told Claire:
“I thought he was playing.”
She looked away.
Neither of us knew whether those moments were connected.
We refused to turn every toddler behavior into retrospective proof.
But the questions changed.
May you like
That mattered.
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