“Harlan was married before he met your mother. Tessa was their only child.”
I looked again at the little girl.
“How old would she be now?”
Beatrice’s eyes dropped.
“She never got older than six.”
I sat down.
“What happened?”
“There was an accident near a river.”
Beatrice’s voice softened.
“Harlan was with her. He turned away for less than a minute. By the time he realized what had happened…”
She stopped.
She didn’t need to finish.
I looked back at the photograph.
The moon pancakes.
My moon pancakes.
“He made those for her.”
“Yes.”
Something inside me twisted.
All those Sunday mornings suddenly felt borrowed.
“Was I some kind of replacement?”
Beatrice immediately shook her head.
“No.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because I watched what losing Tessa did to him.”
She sat across from me.
“After she died, Harlan stopped cooking. He stopped seeing friends. His marriage collapsed because he and his wife couldn’t look at each other without remembering that day.”
Beatrice glanced at the photograph.
“He packed away everything connected to Tessa. Even that little metal cutter.”
I thought of the cutter still sitting in my kitchen drawer.
“The first time he made moon pancakes for you, he called me afterward,” she continued.
“You were four. He said you had found the cutter in a box and asked what it was. He showed you, and you begged him to make pancakes with it.”
My eyes burned.
“He told me he almost said no. Then he looked at you sitting at the table, swinging your legs, and he couldn’t.”
Beatrice smiled sadly.
“He cried through that entire phone call. He said it was the first time he had remembered Tessa and smiled at the same time.”
I pressed my hands against my face.
“Then why did he tell me he lied?”
Beatrice went quiet.
Finally, she said, “Because of what happened after your mother died.”
I lowered my hands.
“What happened?”
“Harlan came here the night after the funeral.”
My heart began beating harder.
“He was supposed to be home with me.”
“He left after you fell asleep.”
