Chapter 5 - Declan’s Blind Spot
Three months earlier, Maisie had said: “Ms. Kendrick gets mad at me.” Declan answered while checking email: “Everybody gets frustrated sometimes.” Two months earlier: “She puts my pictures away.” “Maybe she’s saving them.” Six weeks earlier: “She says you ask too many questions.” That one had made Declan laugh. “Ms. Kendrick probably means Daddy talks too much.” Maisie laughed too. Conversation over.
Now every memory returned differently. Declan sat in Dr. Nina Patel’s office. Maisie played with wooden animals on the carpet. He whispered: “I missed it.” Nina answered: “You missed some things.” “I should’ve known.” “How?” “She told me.” “She told you in four-year-old language.” “And I translated it into what made sense to me.” Nina nodded. That was the flaw.
Declan was busy. Competent. Used to context. Adults said something incomplete, and his brain completed the pattern. With Maisie, that habit became dangerous. He added explanations she had never given. Maybe she meant… Probably… I’m sure… Nina said: “Your job now isn’t to become suspicious of every adult.” “What is it?” “Stop finishing her sentences with your assumptions.”
At home, Maisie touched her hair. “Ms. Kendrick mad because Daddy.” Declan’s chest tightened. He wanted to say: No, sweetheart. None of this is because of me. But that would oversimplify. Kendrick had targeted Maisie partly because Declan questioned the property deal. That was true. The responsibility still belonged to Kendrick.
May you like
He crouched. “She was angry at me.” Maisie nodded. “But she chose what she did to you.” Maisie looked at him. “You didn’t make?” “No.” “I didn’t make?” “No.” That answer mattered. Nobody else’s anger became Maisie’s responsibility.
