Chapter 6 - No One to Promise Yet
Leo lifted his head.
“Daddy?”
Mark’s expression softened instantly.
“Yes, buddy?”
“Did Grandpa cut your promise too?”
The question broke him.
Right there.
In the driveway.
Not loudly.
His eyes filled, and his mouth trembled once before he got control of himself.
“No,” he said softly. “I didn’t have anyone to promise yet.”
Leo looked at the curl in Mark’s hand.
“Rosie does.”
“She does.”
Brenda looked between them, finally realizing the story was bigger than she had allowed herself to believe.
But regret still did not come.
Only defense changing costumes.
“I was trying to help him,” she said.
I laughed once.
It came out sharp and humorless.
“He begged you not to.”
“He would thank me later.”
“That is what adults say when they don’t care what children feel now.”
Brenda’s face hardened again.
“You’ve turned him soft.”
Mark stepped beside me.
“No. We let him stay kind.”
The difference sat in the air.
Soft.
Kind.
Brenda had spent a lifetime confusing the two because kindness was hard to control.
That evening was awful in practical ways.
We called the preschool first.
I handed Leo to Mark after asking, and this time Leo nodded.
Then I called the director.
My voice shook so badly I had to sit on the front step.
Brenda had arrived at the school claiming I had been delayed at a doctor’s appointment. She knew the old pickup code from when she was authorized the previous year. She told the receptionist the updated form must have been filed incorrectly.
The school released him.
The director cried on the phone.
I did not comfort her.
I said, “You released my child to someone not authorized to take him.”
She said, “We are so sorry.”
I said, “Sorry is not a safety procedure.”
Mark sat beside Leo on the living room rug while I made the call.
Rosie was not home yet; she was at the clinic with my sister for a late appointment. Thank God. I did not want her first sight of Leo’s hair to happen in the middle of the driveway with Brenda still in the air around us.
Leo sat in Mark’s lap, holding the saved curl in both hands now.
“Can we tape it back?” he asked.
Mark closed his eyes.
When he opened them, he was steady.
“No, buddy.”
Leo’s face crumpled.
“But Rosie needs it.”
“We saved one.”
“One isn’t all.”
“No,” Mark said. “It isn’t all. But promises don’t break just because someone hurts part of them.”
Leo stared at him.
Children know when adults are saying something important.
They don’t always know whether to believe it.
Mark opened the video again.
Together, they watched little Rosie on the rug, laughing as she tugged Leo’s curls.
Leo began crying silently.
Mark did not tell him it was okay.
It wasn’t.
May you like
He said, “I’m sad too.”
That helped more.
