Everything inside me stopped.
I pulled back.
“What?”
“Don't send me to Aunt Simone.”
“Who told you I would?”
She immediately looked terrified.
Not because she had said something wrong.
Because she had revealed something.
My voice lowered.
“Nia.”
“Who told you I would send you away?”
She looked toward door.
I understood before she answered.
Still, I needed her words.
“Renee said maybe it would be easier for you if I lived somewhere else.”
I stood so fast the basin water moved.
Nia grabbed my sleeve with her good fingertips.
“Don't go.”
I stopped.
That mattered more than anger.
I sat again.
“I’m not going anywhere.”
“She said you and her need time with the new family.”
The new family.
I looked around my daughter's room.
Photographs.
Her mother, Alana, who had died when Nia was five.
Me.
Nia.
Our first apartment after Alana’s death.
The stuffed giraffe she had carried to the funeral.
School certificates.
The bracelet Renee bought her on our wedding day.
The new family.
I felt sick.
“Nia.”
I chose every word carefully.
“You are not outside my family.”
“You understand?”
She nodded uncertainly.
“You were my family before I married Renee.”
“You are my family now.”
“You will be my family when you're fifty and telling me I can't drive anymore.”
A tiny smile.
I continued:
“No one can vote you out.”
That produced a real sob.
She leaned against me again.
I did not go downstairs for almost an hour.
I texted my older sister Simone.
Come over.
Don't ask by text.
Please.
She replied immediately.
On my way.
Simone arrived twenty minutes later.
She took one look at me and stopped joking.
“What happened?”
I showed her the recording in the kitchen while Nia stayed upstairs.
Simone watched.
At the point where Renee kicked the bucket, my sister whispered:
“No.”
Then came Nia saying her hands hurt.
Simone's face changed.
When the recording ended, she asked: