He Called Our Night a Mistake, So I Raised His Daughter Without Him novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: Sorry and Fix It
Nico crouched until his eyes were level with hers.
"Yes," he said. "I lied."
Rosetta's mouth went small.
"To who?"
"To your mom, and to Sullivan. For a long time."
"Why?"
I started to speak, and my brother shook his head at me, gently.
"Because I was scared," he said. "I thought I knew what was best for them. I decided for them, and I didn't ask."
"That's not allowed."
"No, it isn't."
"My teacher says if you do something wrong, you say sorry and fix it."
"You're right," Nico said. "I'm sorry, Rosetta. And I'm going to try to fix it, but your mom gets to decide how."
Rosetta turned and looked at me with all the gravity of seven.
"Are you going to let him fix it?"
"I'm going to think about it."
"Okay." She tucked the compass into her pocket. "Can I still have cake?"
Somebody on the porch laughed out loud, and then every parent was talking at once, and the party started up again around us.
At four o'clock, when the last kid had been collected, I walked my brother to the curb.
Sullivan stood on the porch with his arms folded, watching, and he stayed there.
"Here's what happens," I said.
Nico nodded.
"You don't call me. You don't text. You don't send flowers to a school gym."
"All right."
"If I want you, I'll reach out. It may be a month or it may be five years."
"All right."
"When Rosetta is old enough to understand, sixteen, maybe, you tell her all of it yourself. Not me. Not Sullivan. You, in front of me."
His mouth shook.
"Yes."
"And this."
I had gone inside before he left, and now I held out a worn shoebox of my own.
He took it and lifted the lid.
It was full of envelopes, each one a bank's white sleeve, each one holding the cash he'd left in my mailbox at Christmas and in my coat pockets at Easter and once in Rosetta's piggy bank.
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