Chapter 13 - Emma Returned To The Mansion Suite
For almost two years, Emma refused to enter the suite where Nathan found
her.
Nathan never forced her.
On her seventh birthday, she stood outside the door.
“You don’t have to,” he said.
“I know.”
She opened it.
The carpet had been replaced after investigators removed part of the
original.
Emma walked to the place where she remembered sitting.
Nathan waited.
Then she looked toward the windows.
“Can this be my art room?”
Nathan blinked.
“This room?”
“It has good light.”
Children sometimes reclaimed places without speeches.
Emma chose bright shelves, washable tables, enormous paper rolls, and a
wall she could paint directly.
Above the door, Nathan framed Sophia’s sentence:
You are allowed to tell the truth, even when the truth makes a grown-up
uncomfortable.
The old suite became messy.
Loud.
Covered in paint.
One afternoon a school friend spilled purple paint across a rug.
The child froze.
Emma looked at the stain.
Then laughed.
“It’s an art room.”
Nathan laughed too.
A ruined carpet no longer meant danger.
A mistake no longer meant punishment.
That evening Emma painted the mansion beneath a huge sun.
Near the front door she drew a tiny red envelope.
Nathan asked why.
May you like
“Because red things don’t have to be scary.”
Nathan looked away before she saw his eyes fill.
