This chapter contains brief references to domestic violence, parental neglect and abandonment, and suicide.
These themes are touched on with care, but they may be difficult for some readers.
Please take a moment to check in with yourself before continuing. If any of these subjects feel triggering or overwhelming, you may wish to skip this chapter and return when, or if, you feel ready.
Chapter 14
daisies for little Maya
Maya
It wasn’t supposed to be like this.
Philip should’ve been here.
I wanted to throw it in her face with him watching—to see if he’d finally remember me. If he’d deny it. Twist it. Dress the truth up in another elegant lie.
“Little Maya, look what I brought today.”
The words keep replaying in my mind.
I swallow hard, but the ache doesn’t budge.
I didn’t know what love from a father felt like until Philip stepped into our lives. Before him, there was only the man who gave me his name… a man who struck my mother when the bottle ran dry, and called it love as she folded into herself with every hit.
She’d cover the bruises with long sleeves, heavy makeup, and that same forced smile that made it all look normal. As if I hadn’t heard her the night before… her voice cracking, begging him to stop.
He never raised a hand to me, but he never raised a handforme either. Not to hold mine. Not to clap when I came home with perfect grades. Not to say he was proud.
I was always one of the best in my class.
He didn’t care. He didn’t even show up to my school plays. But Mom did. She always did.
When he died in a car accident, I cried. For days, maybe weeks.
I didn’t want to eat. Didn’t want to go to school.
Now, looking back, I understand that I was able to move past my grief once it finally sank in that he would never hurt her again and would never look at me as if I were a mistake he wished he could erase. Maybe, in some twisted way, it was mercy.
Mom grieved every day until Philip appeared.
One evening, when she dropped me off at my uncle’s house, she returned later with a bouquet of red roses and a smile that lit up her face.
When I asked who they were from, she said.“Someone very special. The most special person I’ve ever met.”
I met Philip on my eleventh birthday.
He came for dinner, carrying a gift. His presence seemed to warm the room before he even spoke.
I remember being upset because my uncle, aunt and little cousin couldn’t come—but then he smiled, and the room changed.
He was shorter than my father. Almost Mom’s height.
And I remember thinking:maybe that means he won’t hurt her. Maybe she’ll be safe this time.
During dinner, I stayed quiet. My father never liked anyone talking at the table. But Philip kept asking me questions, about my school, my favorite books, my dreams. When I told himabout the essay I’d written on protecting the environment, and how it got picked as the best in class, he asked to read it.
So I ran to my room, heart racing, to fetch it.
