The question came between stoplights, nestled in the hum of the car’s engine and the soft thud of her tiny sneakers kicking the seat. She asked it like she was wondering about the weather. Like it was normal. Like it wouldn’t split me open.
“Would you cry,” she said, “if I went to the ocean with my other mom and dad?”
I didn’t answer right away. I watched the road blur ahead, the sky folding into dusk. Her voice was light, curious. Not cruel. Not knowing.
She had drawn them in crayon once—two smiling faces beside hers, holding hands at the beach. I thought it was imaginary. A child’s invention. But now I wasn’t sure.
I wanted to ask who they were. I wanted to say, “You only have one mom and dad.” But I didn’t. Because maybe she needed them. Maybe they were real in the way children make things real—through longing, through stories, through the spaces we fail to fill.
So I said, “Would you miss me?”
She nodded. “I’d miss you lots. But they have seashells and ice cream.”
I smiled, because what else could I do? I told her the ocean was big, and sometimes people drift apart in it. But if she ever went, I’d be the lighthouse. I’d be the one waiting on the shore.
She fell asleep before we got home, her hand curled around a toy dolphin. And I sat in the driveway a little longer, wondering how many versions of love a child can carry—and how many of them we’re allowed to lose.
