Chapter 9 - Lucy Did Not Need Me to Become a Perfect Father After I Failed Her
After the wedding was canceled, I overcorrected.
I asked Lucy about everything.
“How was school?”
“Fine.”
“What does fine mean?”
“Dad.”
“Did anyone make you uncomfortable?”
“No.”
“Did anyone tell you not to tell me something?”
“No!”
I had turned attentiveness into:
interrogation.
Dr. Moreno stopped me.
“You are asking Lucy to prove every day that nothing bad happened.”
That was not safety.
That was anxiety.
Then I became too permissive.
Ice cream before dinner.
Staying up late.
No consequences for rude behavior because I feared becoming like:
Victoria.
Also wrong.
Lucy needed:
parenting.
Not permanent compensation.
One night she threw a toy after I said screen time was over.
I froze.
How do I discipline a child whose stepmother used “discipline” as control?
Dr. Moreno answered:
“Normally.”
Boundary.
Consequence.
No humiliation.
No threat that my love depended on:
obedience.
I made Lucy pick up the toy and lose the tablet for the evening.
She told me:
“You’re mean.”
I nearly laughed with relief.
Normal.
Then her hair.
For three weeks, she left it uneven.
Children at school asked.
One said it looked:
weird.
Lucy cried.
I offered a salon again.
“No.”
Okay.
Then one morning she asked:
“Can Rebecca cut the long side?”
Rebecca was not a stylist.
We found a salon where the stylist agreed to explain every step and ask Lucy before touching:
her.
Lucy chose a chin-length bob.
Not because we needed to erase what Victoria did.
Because Lucy wanted both sides:
even.
The stylist asked:
“May I touch your hair?”
Lucy said:
“Yes.”
Then:
“Can I make it shorter than the other side was?”
“Yes.”
Choice after:
choice.
Ordinary.
At the end, Lucy looked in the mirror.
“I look older.”
I said:
“You look seven.”
She rolled her eyes.
Good.
Then she asked if I liked it.
I almost said:
I love it.
Instead:
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
“Then I do.”
Maybe cheesy.
Still right.
Then Sarah.
Lucy began talking about her mother more after Victoria left.
At first I worried that meant regression.
Dr. Moreno said:
“No. It may mean the topic feels safe again.”
That hurt.
We returned Sarah’s photographs to the rooms where they had been before.
Not everywhere.
Not shrine.
Home.
Then I realized one photograph was missing.
Sarah holding Lucy as a newborn.
Victoria had once said she moved it into storage because the frame was:
damaged.
We could not find:
it.
I asked Victoria through attorneys.
She said she did not know.
Then her former assistant from the event-design company contacted Rebecca privately.
Months earlier, Victoria had asked her to discard several “old family frames” while reorganizing my house for an engagement photo shoot.
The assistant refused to throw out a photograph containing a:
baby.
She stored it in a labeled box at Victoria’s office.
The photo was still:
there.
Victoria had not destroyed it.
But she had deliberately removed it from my home.
Why?
Because it was the photograph guests most often asked:
about.
Sarah and newborn Lucy.
Victoria had been curating not only future wedding pictures.
May you like
She had been curating the family history visible in our house.
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