Emma’s Own Secret
Chapter 13 - Emma’s Own Secret
Margaret’s message forced Emma to confront something she had not admitted.
She had been planning to move across the country.
A promotion waited in Seattle.
She had accepted it three weeks earlier.
She had not told Robert or Ethan.
Ethan looked stunned.
“You were leaving?”
Emma nodded.
Robert said nothing.
She explained that she had been afraid to tell them because she knew her father was struggling.
Then she stopped.
The irony was impossible to miss.
She had condemned them for hiding difficult truths while hiding one of her own.
“I’m sorry,” she said.
Robert looked at her.
“Do you want the job?”
“Yes.”
“Then take it.”
Emma’s eyes filled.
Robert smiled sadly.
“Apparently I’m learning how to let my children go.”
Emma laughed.
For the first time since coming home, the laughter did not feel guilty.
She would move.
Ethan would return to school.
Robert would rebuild.
Their family was changing.
May you like
But change, Emma was beginning to understand, was not always destruction.
Sometimes it was proof that people had survived.
