Chapter 26 - mia told me she was leaving homeCollege.
I knew it was coming.
I objected anyway.
“Three thousand miles.”
“Two thousand six hundred.”
“That correction makes it worse.”
Mia had been accepted into Northwestern.
She wanted to study history and information science.
“Why information science?”
“Archives.”
Of course.
The child who once proved truth by remembering the exact ring had become obsessed with how records survive.
I blamed Cole.
Mia blamed me.
“You catalog everything.”
“Because people steal things.”
“One time.”
“One time was sufficient.”
She grinned.
The tuition conversation was simple.
Laura and I had funded education planning before she became ill.
Mia would not need to sell jewelry.
Still, she made her own budget.
Opened her own accounts.
Moved the jewelry trust assets into a structure designed with an independent advisor.
Not me.
That hurt more than it should have.
“Who is the advisor?”
“Dad.”
“Background?”
“Dad.”
“Credentials?”
“Already checked.”
“By whom?”
“Me.”
I stopped.
She smiled.
“Listen first. Check next.”
I deserved that.
Move-in day arrived in August.
Mia packed clothes.
Books.
Three photographs of Laura.
The sapphire pendant.
Not the ring.
I noticed.
“You’re leaving it?”
“For now.”
“Why?”
“Dorm.”
Reasonable.
“The pendant is less valuable?”
“Financially, yes.”
I nodded.
No argument.
Growth.
At the airport I asked:
“Text when you land.”
“Yes.”
“When you get the luggage.”
“No.”
“When you reach campus.”
“Yes.”
“When you enter the dorm.”
“Probably.”
“Mia.”
“Dad.”
I looked at her.
Eighteen.
No brace.
No frightened seven-year-old insisting adults were wrong.
No little girl asking whether she had to wear a ring.
A woman with a boarding pass.
She hugged me.
Hard.
“You believed me eventually.”
My throat closed.
“I should have believed you sooner.”
“I know.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.”
Then she pulled away.
“That’s why I can leave.”
I frowned.
“What?”
“You fixed the part you could fix.”
She smiled.
“I don’t need to stay mad to make sure you remember.”
The exact thing she had said at eighteen about the ring.
Anger no longer had to protect her.
She walked toward security.
I stood there far too long.
May you like
A TSA employee eventually told me I could not block the lane.
Apparently grief does not exempt anyone from airport procedures.
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