Chapter 8 - The Children Heard More Than We Thought
We tried to keep the children away from the adult conflict.
We failed partly.
Children always know when a house changes.
Our eight-year-old son asked me the next morning:
“Is Dad leaving?”
I sat beside him.
“I don’t know yet.”
“Because of Lauren?”
My chest tightened.
“What do you know about Lauren?”
He shrugged.
“She sits too close to Dad.”
Children notice everything.
My six-year-old daughter asked:
“Is she going to be our new mom?”
That question nearly broke me.
“No.”
“But she told me I could have two moms someday.”
The room went still.
“When?”
“At the school fundraiser.”
I had to keep my voice calm.
“What exactly did she say?”
My daughter thought.
“She said families change and sometimes kids get bonus moms.”
Maybe innocent.
In another context, harmless.
After seeing the custody draft, it sounded different.
Still, I refused to turn my daughter into a witness machine.
No repeated questions.
No pressure.
No asking her to interpret adult intent.
I wrote down exactly what she volunteered and gave it to my attorney.
Then I told both children:
“Nothing happening between adults changes who your mother is. Nothing changes who your father is. And none of this is because of you.”
May you like
That became a sentence I repeated often.
Because whatever Ethan and Lauren had done, I would not let our children grow up believing they caused the explosion by existing too loudly in their own family.
