Chapter 1 - She's Not My Mommy
The light in my bedroom was that warm yellow that made the dark wood floor look orange. The white bookcase against the wall hadn't moved. The bunny with the blue ears was still slumped against the teddy bears on the second shelf, and the air still smelled like laundry detergent and the night lotion my dad rubbed on my hands before bed. I was standing in the middle of the rug in my off-white dress with the puff sleeves, and my cheeks were wet. I was holding the little silver frame out in front of me with both hands so it wouldn't shake, even though it did.
That was the contradiction. Everything in the room said bedtime, same as always, but the woman in the doorway wasn't my mommy and the picture in my hands was.
I was three.
At night it was always around eight, after my bath, when my hair was still a little damp and wavy over my shoulders and the cream bow on the right side had slipped down. Dad was kneeling on the floor next to me in his navy sweater and gray pants. I could see the silver watch on his left wrist and the wedding band he never took off. He wasn't standing. He was down on one knee so his face was level with mine, breathing slow, looking at me like he didn't know whether to touch the frame or touch me. Behind him, in the doorway, she stood. Long straight blonde hair, cream sweater, beige pants with a brown belt. She hadn't come in. She stayed where the hall light cut across the doorway and left her face in that neutral, stern kind of stillness.
I hadn't meant to say it loud. It just came out because she was telling me what to do and she didn't get to.
"She's not my mommy," I said. My voice was quiet and tearful and it broke a little at the end. I said it to the woman.
She looked at me, then at my dad, then back at me. Her hands stayed at her sides.
"Sophia, bed, now." Her voice was firm, controlled. She said it to me like it was already decided.
My dad didn't answer her. He kept his eyes on me. He had that small furrow between his eyebrows and he was breathing through his nose, trying to keep his face restrained. He glanced down at the silver frame I was holding out. Inside it was me and my mom, cheek to cheek. My mom's smile was the one I remembered. I turned the frame a little toward him, so he could see her.
For a second nobody moved. The house was so quiet I could hear the heater clicking.
Then I whispered it, just to him.
"Mommy."
It was soft and it trembled. I wasn't talking to the woman anymore. I was talking to my dad.
He leaned in a little, closer. He didn't take the frame from me.
I held it tighter and brought it to my chest. I could feel the cool silver edge against my dress. I looked right at him and said the thing she had told me when she gave it to me, the thing I believed with my whole three-year-old heart.
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"Mommy said it so she can still see me."
I clutched the photograph against my chest after that and didn't let go. My dad's mouth opened like he was going to say something, but he didn't yet. The woman was still in the doorway, the door still open behind her, the warm dim light still on the bookcase and the bears, and the three of us stayed like that, held in the same breath.
