“But things are different now.”
I already knew where this was going.
“I have money.”
There it was.
“I can give you opportunities now.”
She smiled.
“Things you never could have had growing up here.”
Here.
I looked around the room.
At the secondhand coffee table my son Archie had dented when he was seventeen.
At the hallway covered in school photographs.
At the bookshelf filled with trophies.
At the couch where I had spent dozens of nights sitting upright because one or more of three feverish little girls refused to sleep unless they were touching me.
At the doorway where fifteen years of height marks were still written in pencil.
This was here.
Sophie smiled politely.
“Mom.”
Vanessa almost seemed to stop breathing at the word.
“Come sit down.”
Her entire face lit up.
Clara and Lily exchanged a glance.
Then Sophie added:
“We actually have something for you.”
