Chapter 6 - The Question About Her Father
We met in a small family counseling office three blocks from the river.
Ana waited downstairs. Dr. Mercer sat near the window and explained that Sienna could pause or end the conversation whenever she needed. I was not to ask her to make decisions about where she would live. There would be time for practical questions later.
I wore a navy cardigan because Sofia had once said blue was the color of mornings. I knew she might no longer remember that, or that she might remember and resent being reminded.
The door opened.
A girl stepped inside carrying a canvas bag with a cello-shaped key chain. She had Luis's steady gaze and the same small birthmark beside her ear. Her hair was shorter than in the photograph. A silver clip held one side back.
For a moment we were both too still to breathe.
"Hi," she said.
"Hi, Sienna."
She glanced at the chair opposite me.
"Can I sit there?"
"Of course."
I wanted to move toward her so badly my arms ached. I kept my hands clasped.
Sienna looked at my wrists. My scars were visible below the sleeves, narrow bands of pale skin left by surgery and healing. She noticed but didn't ask.
"Victor says you were hurt in the fire," she said.
"Yes."
"Did you see my dad die?"
The question landed with a force I should have expected.
"No," I answered. "The last time I saw him, he was carrying a black case down the stairs. He told me to take you toward the kitchen door. I remember a loud sound, and smoke coming under the door. Then someone pulled me outside. I woke up in the hospital."
"Did he leave us?"
"Not the way you mean. He stayed because he thought he could keep the people who were chasing us from finding the records he'd collected. I don't know what happened after he went back upstairs."
She stared at her hands.
"Victor says he made bad choices."
"He did. He worked around dangerous people. He kept things from me because he thought he could fix them alone. But he loved you. Both those things can be true."
"Do you have proof he loved me?"
I reached into my bag and brought out a small notebook. The cover was bent and stained from water damage, but the pages had survived in a box I kept after the fire. I had never been able to throw away the belongings that reminded me of them.
Luis had used the notebook for shopping lists and measurements for a bookshelf he was building for Sofia. On one page, beneath the dimensions, he had written: Need stronger shelf. Sofia has too many books and I keep buying more.
I slid it across the table.
Sienna studied the handwriting. Then she touched the last word with her index finger.
"It's funny," she said. "Victor buys me too many books."
"Your father did, too."
For the first time, she smiled.
It vanished as quickly as it came.
"Why didn't you check if I was alive?"
I told her about the injuries, the reported identification, and the empty casket. I didn't describe every nightmare. This wasn't a hearing where I had to persuade anyone. It was a daughter asking a mother a question.
"I believed what I was told," I said. "That was a mistake I wish I could undo. But I did not know there was any reason to search for a living child."
"I thought you didn't want me."
The room seemed to tilt.
Dr. Mercer waited without interrupting.
"I know someone taught you something like that," I said. "It isn't true."
"Victor never said you didn't want me. He said you were dead. That might be worse."
"I'm sorry."
Sienna drew her knees together.
"He isn't a bad person all the time. He helped me learn music. He takes me to school when he can. When I broke my arm, he slept in the chair by my hospital bed."
"I believe you."
"You keep calling him a liar in the papers."
"He lied about you being alive. And about me being alive. I can't pretend that didn't happen. But I don't need you to stop caring about him to have a relationship with me."
She looked surprised, then ashamed of her surprise.
We talked for nearly an hour. She told me she loved chamber music but hated competitions, that her best friend had moved to Colorado, and that she wanted to study architecture because old buildings seemed to remember more than people did.
I told her about my locksmith shop, my friend Ana, and the stray cat that slept on my windowsill whenever I left the fire escape open.
Before leaving, she asked whether I could send a photograph of Luis that wasn't the one Victor kept in the hallway.
"I have a whole box," I said. "You can choose which ones to see."
She stood. I rose too, making sure not to block the door.
"Can I hug you?" she asked.
I nodded because speaking would have broken me.
She stepped close for one brief, careful hug. Then she let go and backed away. I understood that the gentleness of it did not promise everything else would be easy.
In the hallway she turned once.
"You can call me Sienna," she said. "Maybe later we can talk about Sofia."
"Whenever you're ready."
May you like
The next afternoon Ana called with a discovery from the old fire investigation. The car in the anonymous photograph belonged to a security company hired by Victor, not Rafael. Its driver had told investigators that Luis had been seen leaving the house before the first flames appeared.
If that account was accurate, then the death I'd built into every memory might have happened somewhere else.
