I sigh. “If any kid has a chance of understanding, it’s you. But some things are between your mother and me, and it’s not right for me to share them without her permission. What I can tell you is this: your mother is an amazing woman. As for me… I’m not quite as good as she is. She’s calm and patient and good to her core. I’m none of those things.”
She turns her huge eyes up at me. “Is that why you’re leaving?”
“No. I’m leaving because I have to settle things at home. But it is the reason I can’t be in your lives the way I would like to be.”
“How would you like to be in our lives?”
I should have known better than to get into a conversation like this with a nine-year-old. But since I deserve the interrogation, I answer her.
“Wholly,” I say. “Like a family.”
She looks back over to the
