At Dr. Harper’s suggestion, Daniel made a “feelings drawer” in the kitchen. Not my idea of parenting, but I have grown old enough to know that what sounds silly to a sixty-eight-year-old man may still save a seven-year-old from swallowing confusion whole.
Inside the drawer were index cards with words and little drawings: mad, scared, sleepy, mixed-up, brave, lonely, okay.
If Ruby felt something big, she could pull a card and put it on the table instead of trying to say it right away.
One evening she set “mad” and “lonely” on the table side by side.
Daniel asked, “Want to talk?”
She said, “I miss my mommy when I’m mad at her and I’m mad at my mommy when I miss her.”
I had to leave the room then under the excuse of checking the mail, because some forms of heartbreak are too clean to witness without breaking your own structure.
Supervised visits began in spring.
A facility with bright walls, plastic toys, and observers who took notes while trying to look invisible.
Daniel asked me once whether I thought he was doing the right thing by allowing them.