Chapter 13 - Emma’s Birthday Question
Emma did not want another birthday party the next year.
That hurt.
I did not force.
She said:
“Maybe dinner.”
“Okay.”
“No pink.”
“Okay.”
“No Grandma.”
“Okay.”
“Dad?”
She looked away.
“I don’t know.”
We had a year.
Therapy.
She asked Mark directly during a session three months after the incident.
“Did you want a boy more than me?”
Mark cried immediately.
Dr. Levin stopped him.
“Answer before emotion becomes Emma’s job.”
Good.
Mark wiped face.
“When your mom was pregnant with you, I imagined both. Boy or girl.”
Emma waited.
“When you were born, I loved you.”
“That’s not answer.”
Ten-year-old precision.
Mark swallowed.
“Later, I wanted a son too.”
“More than Lily?”
“No.”
“More than me?”
“No.”
“Then why ‘she’s right’?”
There.
He closed eyes.
“Because I was angry at Mom about our marriage and the house, and Grandma said something that matched an ugly thought I had about the future.”
Emma stared.
“What thought?”
“That I wouldn’t have a son to pass certain things to.”
“Why not me?”
Mark cried.
This time quietly.
“No good reason.”
Emma’s face hardened.
“Because girl.”
“Yes.”
There.
No euphemism.
Then:
“Do you think now?”
“I’m trying to change what I think.”
She frowned.
“Trying?”
“I don’t want to lie and say one therapy session erased everything I was raised to believe.”
That was honest.
Then:
“But I know those beliefs hurt you and Lily and they are wrong.”
Emma looked at Dr. Levin.
“Can I leave?”
“Yes.”
She left.
No hug.
No forgiveness.
Later she told me:
“He said truth.”
“That matters.”
May you like
“I’m still mad.”
“That matters too.”
