I walked over and sat on the floor beside her.
“Lucia? Can we talk for a minute?”
She looked up, her big brown eyes, so like her father’s, yet so much kinder, searching mine.
“Is it about the new house? Are we going back to the big house with the new lady?”
I felt a pang in my chest. “No, honey. We aren’t going back there. But tomorrow, Mommy has to go to a special building to talk to a judge. Do you know what a judge is?”
“Like a teacher for grown-ups?” she asked.
“A bit like that,” I smiled softly, tucking a stray hair behind her ear. “The judge is going to help Mommy and Daddy finish our divorce. It means we won’t be married anymore, and we won’t live together ever again.”
Lucia went quiet, her crayon stilled over the elephant’s ear. “Is Daddy sad?”
“I think Daddy is having a ha
