Oh, dear God, how could protecting your child cause so much damage? "It wasn't because of you. Not because of you, Ali, or because of Kayla. I promise you that's not true."
"He doesn't love me."
How could she answer? What was right? Praying that whatever words she chose would be best, she stroked Ali's tumbled hair. "It might be hard for you to understand this, but some people aren't cut out to be parents. Maybe they'd like to be, or they want to be, but they just can't. Your father never meant to hurt you or Kayla."
Ali shook her head slowly. "He doesn't love me." She said it quietly. "Or Kayla. Or you."
"If he doesn't love you in the way you wish he did, it isn't your fault. It's nothing you did. Nothing you are or aren't. It's not his fault either, because—"
"You're making excuses again."
Laura drew back, shut her eyes. "All right, Allison. No excuses."
"Are you sorry you had me?"
Laura's eyes flashed open. "What? Sorry? Oh, Allison." This part, at least, was easy as breathing. "Do you know, when I was a girl, hardly older than you, I used to dream that I would fall in love one day, and get married. I'd have a home, and beautiful children to fill it. I'd watch them grow."
Her lips curved now as she stroked the hair away from her daughter's damp cheeks. "Not all of that dream worked out the way I thought it would, but the best part did. The best part of the dream, and the best part of my life, is you, and it's Kayla. Nothing in the world could be truer than that."
Ali knuckled a tear from her cheek. "I didn't mean those things I said."
"I know."
"I said them because I knew you would never go away. No matter what, you'd never go away."
"That's right." Smiling, Laura flicked a finger down Ali's cheek. "You're stuck with me."
"I felt bad, and I wanted it to be your fault." She had to swallow before she could speak again. "Did he go to bed with another woman?"
Just when you thought it was safe, Laura thought with a jolt. "Where did you hear a thing like that?"
"At school." The flush rose up into Ali's cheeks, but she kept her eyes steady. "Some of the older girls talked about it."
"That's nothing you—or the older girls—should be talking about."
Ali's mouth firmed. "He did." She nodded and, leaving a small, lovely part of her childhood on the bench, rose. "That was wrong. He hurt you, and you made him go away."
"There were a lot of reasons I asked for a divorce, Ali." Tread carefully, Laura warned herself, even as her heart was breaking to see that too-adult look in her baby's eyes. "None of them is appropriate for you or your friends to discuss."
"I'm talking to you, Mama," Ali said so simply that Laura had no response. "It wasn't my fault," she continued. "It wasn't your fault, either. It was his fault."
"No, it wasn't your fault. But two people make a marriage, Ali. And two people break it."
No, Ali thought, studying her mother. Not always. "Did you go to bed with another man?"
"No, of course not—" Laura stopped herself, appalled that she was discussing her sex life with a ten-year-old. "Allison, that question is completely inappropriate."
"Cheating is inappropriate, too."
Weary again, Laura rubbed her brow. "You're too young to judge, Ali."
"Does that mean it's all right to cheat sometimes?"
Trapped. Trapped by the unbending logic and admirable values of a ten-year-old girl. "All right—no, it's not."
"He took our money, too, didn't he?"
"Oh, good God." Laura rose. "Gossip isn't attractive, and it's irrelevant."