Chapter 4 - What Children Believe
Marina lowered herself to the floor.
“Who said that?”
Miguel pressed his lips together.
She waited.
In the hall behind him, a floorboard creaked.
Gabriel and Rafael stepped into view.
Neither looked ready for another joke.
“We didn’t know you’d get scared like that,” Gabriel said.
“You knew I’d be scared.
You didn’t know how much.”
His face crumpled.
Marina kept her voice steady.
“That matters.
Both things matter.”
Rafael rubbed his eyes with the heel of his hand.
“Are you telling Dad?”
“He already knows.”
“Is he sending us away?”
The question came so quickly she almost missed it.
“No one has said that.”
“Aunt Bea said he would,” Gabriel whispered.
“If we made another nanny leave.”
Marina felt her anger settle into something colder.
“Come sit.”
They sat in a crooked line on the carpet.
“First, your mother did not die because you were bad.”
Miguel began to cry.
Not loudly.
Just a broken sound he seemed embarrassed to make.
“We wanted her to come upstairs,” he said.
“We kept calling.”
“That didn’t cause a fire.”
“But we were supposed to be asleep.”
“Being awake didn’t cause it either.”
Dante stood at the far end of the hall.
Marina hadn’t heard him arrive.
She saw the moment he understood what his children had been carrying.
He leaned against the wall as though someone had hit him.
“Boys,” he said.
All three stiffened.
He noticed.
For a moment, he looked more frightened by that than by anything else.
Then he sat on the floor.
“I’m not sending you away.”
Rafael crawled into his lap so fast Dante barely caught him.
Gabriel followed.
Miguel stayed beside Marina.
Dante looked at his youngest son.
“I should have told you that a long time ago.”
Later, after the boys were asleep, he found Marina in the kitchen.
“Rosa said you were packing.”
“I was.”
“Were?”
“I haven’t decided.”
“I’ll double your salary.”
“That won’t fix what happened.”
He looked down.
“No,” he said.
“It won’t.”
She set her glass on the counter.
“If I stay, the children get help.
Real help.
Someone trained to talk to grieving kids.”
“Done.”
“No forced apologies.
No threats about sending them away.
And I need clear answers about this house.”
He hesitated.
She picked up her bag.
“All right,” he said.
From the kitchen doorway, Beatrice gave a small, wounded laugh.
“How touching.”
Dante turned.
May you like
Beatrice looked straight at Marina.
“Before you start judging this family, perhaps you should explain why a little alarm made you fall apart.”
