“That’s what I mean.”
Vanessa looked around.
Then said:
“I’m tired of every photograph looking like a memorial to his first life.”
Marcus stopped the video.
Nobody moved.
Tiana stared at the screen.
She had thought hearing proof would feel satisfying.
It did not.
It felt like someone turned suspicion into concrete and placed it on her chest.
Marcus whispered:
“I’m sorry.”
Tiana looked at him.
“You didn’t say it.”
“No.”
“But I brought her into your life.”
“Dad.”
“I need to own that.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I should have.”
Tiana shook her head.
“That sounds like what you told me not to do.”
Marcus frowned.
“What?”
“Make myself responsible for everybody else.”
He almost smiled.
“Fair.”
Eli closed the laptop.
“There’s another clip.”
Marcus looked up.
“Worse?”
“Different.”
He played.
Maya and Vanessa stood alone near the balloons.
Vanessa crouched.
“Remember, you and Jordan stay beside me.”
Maya asked:
“Where does Tiana go?”
Vanessa’s expression changed.
“Beside her dad if she has to.”
“If she has to?”
“Maya.”
“What?”
Vanessa sighed.
“Sometimes you have to let adults arrange things.”
Maya persisted.
“But isn’t she our sister?”
Long pause.
Vanessa answered:
“She is Marcus’s daughter.”
Maya frowned.
“That’s not what I asked.”
Vanessa stood.
“Go find your brother.”
The clip ended.
Maya started crying at the table.
Marcus immediately hugged her.
“I should’ve told you,” she whispered.
“No.”
“You told the truth yesterday.”
“That was enough.”
Eli left them with the footage.
Two hours later Marcus called Vanessa.
He did not ask her to come home.
He asked her to meet with a family therapist.
She refused initially.
“This is becoming a trial.”
Marcus answered:
“No. A trial decides guilt. I’m deciding whether we have a marriage left.”
She came.
The first session was brutal.
Tiana did not attend.
Neither did the younger children.
Just Marcus and Vanessa.
Dr. Elaine Foster asked Vanessa why she had wanted the photograph without Tiana.
Vanessa gave three explanations before the therapist stopped her.
First:
“It was just one photograph.”
Then:
“I wanted a picture with my biological children.”
Then:
“I felt invisible in my own family.”
Dr. Foster said:
“All three things may be emotionally true to you. None explain why a child had to be removed.”
Vanessa cried.
Marcus remained quiet.
Dr. Foster asked:
“When you looked at Tiana, what did you feel?”