Chapter 15 - Anouk’s mistake that wasn’t hers
Anouk began apologizing for telling me.
That was predictable and awful.
“If I didn’t tell, Seraphina stays?”
“No.”
“If I didn’t record, you marry?”
Maybe.
I hated the honest answer.
“We were engaged.”
“Then I broke wedding.”
“No.”
“She says you choose me.”
There.
Seraphina had made the child responsible for adult loss.
I knelt.
“Anouk, adults decide whether to marry. You do not control that.”
“But you stopped because her.”
“Because of what she did.”
“To me.”
“Yes.”
“So me.”
Children build causation with whatever blocks adults leave available.
Dr. Naomi Price, Anouk’s therapist, helped us change language.
Not:
Anouk caused breakup.
Not:
Seraphina caused breakup alone.
Maximilian ended engagement after learning Seraphina was unsafe with his child and had threatened him.
Specific.
Anouk also felt guilty about the recorder.
“I spy.”
“No.”
“Seraphina says.”
“You used something inside your teddy that Mom put there.”
“Record secret.”
“Sometimes recording people can create privacy problems. That is adult law. It is not your job.”
“Did I bad?”
“No.”
Important.
I refused to turn my daughter into investigator.
The recorder had captured what it captured.
She would never be asked to do that again.
No teddy surveillance.
May you like
No secret devices in bedrooms.
Protection would not become an intelligence operation.
