Chapter 3 - The first Meeting
741 Words
Their first official meeting happened shortly before Christmas.
But for Damian, Rea wasn't completely new.
He had seen her before.
Several times.
At the playground.
Sometimes she had been sitting on the bench while Leo watched him play. Sometimes she had pushed him on the swing. Once, she had even helped him find a toy car he had dropped in the sand.
Damian had never thought much about it.
She was simply the nice woman who sometimes came with Daddy.
He had never asked who she was.
And nobody had told him.
So when Leo told him and Chloe that they were going to meet someone special before Christmas, Damian wasn't particularly worried.
He was curious.
That was all.
Then he walked into the room and saw her.
His face immediately lit up.
“It's you!”
Rea smiled.
“Yes.”
“You're the playground lady!”
Leo laughed.
Rea looked at him, amused.
“I suppose I am.”
Damian walked straight toward her.
“You know me.”
“I do.”
“You know my car.”
“I do.”
“And you know Daddy.”
Rea glanced at Leo.
“Yes. I know your daddy too.”
Damian seemed satisfied with that answer.
He turned toward Chloe.
“I told you she's nice.”
Chloe gave him a warning look.
“You don't know that.”
“Yes, I do.”
Rea didn't interrupt them.
She simply smiled.
She understood that the children had been given a lot of information before this meeting.
Probably too much.
So she didn't try to convince them of anything.
She didn't tell them that she loved their father.
She didn't tell them that she wanted to be part of their lives.
She didn't ask them to like her.
She simply let them decide for themselves.
And somehow, that made everything easier.
---
Later that evening, Damian sat beside Rea while the adults talked.
He asked her questions.
Lots of them.
Did she live near them?
Did she like Christmas?
Could she build a snowman?
Did she know how to make pancakes?
Rea answered every question seriously.
When Damian asked whether she had ever been to Australia, she told him she hadn't.
“I have,” he announced proudly.
“I know.”
“Daddy told you?”
“Yes.”
Damian nodded.
He liked that she knew things about him.
Not because she was trying to replace anyone.
Simply because she remembered.
Across the room, Leo watched them.
There was a softness in his expression that Maxime hadn't seen in a very long time.
And perhaps that was what hurt her most.
Because the children seemed comfortable.
Especially Damian.
The woman she had spent months warning them about wasn't frightening.
She wasn't manipulative.
She wasn't trying to take her place.
She was simply kind.
And Maxime knew that kindness could be much more dangerous than cruelty.
Because it was difficult to hate someone who had done nothing wrong.
---
The evening ended peacefully.
On the way home, Damian leaned against the car window.
After a few minutes, he asked:
“Is Rea coming again?”
Leo looked at him through the rear-view mirror.
“Would you like that?”
Damian nodded.
“Yes.”
Chloe looked out of her own window.
She didn't say anything.
But she didn't object either.
For the first time, Maxime's warning felt less powerful than the children's own experience.
They had met Rea.
They had seen her for themselves.
And she hadn't been the woman they had been told to fear.
---
A few months later, Leo and Rea began talking about taking the children away for a holiday.
Not for a day.
Not for an afternoon.
A real holiday.
The four of them.
Together.
The following May.
For Leo, it felt like a natural next step.
For Rea, it felt like something much bigger.
And somewhere inside herself, she knew that the holiday would change the relationship between all of them.
Because spending a few hours together was one thing.
Living together under the same roof, waking up at the same breakfast table and sharing days that belonged to no one else was something entirely different.
For the first time, they would have the chance to discover what it might feel like to be a family.
None of them knew yet whether that would bring them closer together.
Or tear them further apart.
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