“Being happy is always okay. Phoebe would have wanted that.”
I meant it.
I never wanted Emmett to spend the rest of his life frozen inside grief.
When he eventually decided to marry Claire, I supported him.
I attended the wedding because I wanted their marriage to succeed.
That needs to be understood.
What happened later had nothing to do with jealousy over my daughter being replaced.
It had everything to do with a five-year-old girl in shiny shoes who had spent two weeks telling everyone she was going to be in Daddy’s wedding pictures.
I heard Claire clearly.
The bridal suite door was slightly open.
I had been looking for Margot, who had spent the previous hour with the bridal party because Emmett wanted her to feel included.
Then I heard Claire say:
“You’re not the most important girl in your dad’s life anymore. Stay out of the family photos.”
I stopped walking.
For a moment, there was silence.
Then Margot came through the doorway.
She was already crying.
Not loudly.
It was that quiet, confused crying children do when an adult says something hurtful and they don’t yet understand how to process it.
She found a chair beside a window.
Sat down.
And stared at her shoes.
The shoes she had been so proud of that morning.
I needed a moment before approaching her.
Because what she needed from me was calm.
Not the full force of what I was feeling.
Finally, I sat beside her and put my arm around her.
“Peanut, I’ve got you.”
She leaned against me.
We stayed quiet for a while.
Then she whispered,
“Did I do something wrong?”
“No.”
“She said—”
“I heard her.”
Margot looked at me.
“And she was wrong.”
“But she’s going to be Daddy’s wife.”
“Yes.”
“So does that mean she’s more important now?”
I chose my next words carefully.
“Your father loves you in a way he loves nobody else. There is only one Margot. Nobody else can be his daughter. That place belongs only to you.”
“Even if he has a new wife?”
“Even if he had a hundred new wives. There would still be one place in his life shaped exactly like you.”
She thought about that.
Then she asked,
“What about the pictures?”
“You’re going to be in the pictures.”
“How do you know?”
“Because I’m going to make sure of it.”
She studied my face.
“Trust me?”
She nodded.
Then, a moment later, she asked if we could go outside because she wanted to hear her shoes on the pavement.
So we did.
