I set my own mug down and pulled her closer against my side. “Emma, listen to me. You brought thoughtful gifts because you’re a thoughtful, generous person. That is never, ever the wrong thing to be. What happened tonight had nothing to do with you or what you brought. It had to do with grown-up problems that are not yours to carry.”
She nodded, but I could tell she didn’t fully believe me, the way kids that age often don’t fully believe reassurance even when they desperately want to.
Later that evening, after Daniel had gone to check something in the garage, I found Emma in the kitchen, standing at the counter with her phone propped against the sugar canister, playing what turned out to be a cooking tutorial video, some cheerful chef walking through a simple holiday dinner. She’d pulled out a pan and was attempting, with a seriousness that nearly undid me on the spot, to make a small Christmas dinner of her own. Just for us, she explained, since we’d missed the one at Grandma’s.
“You don’t have to do that, sweetheart,” I said gently, coming to stand beside her.
“I want to,” she said, not looking up from the pan, where something was already beginning to smoke slightly around the edges. “The house shouldn’t feel empty just because they didn’t want us there.”
