The words hit me like a pinprick to the heart. Before I could say anything, she looked up at me, smiled sweetly, and said, “It’s okay, Mommy. She doesn’t tell either.”
A strange chill crept through me.
I forced a little laugh. “Well, sweetheart, babies can’t talk yet. What kind of secrets do you mean?”
She just kissed the baby’s forehead and shrugged. “I’m hungry. Can I have a cookie?”
That was the end of it — or at least, that’s what I told myself.
Lina had always had a vivid imagination. She made up songs about clouds being God’s pillows and had an invisible dragon named Toffee who slept under her bed. “Secrets” sounded like another one of her fantasies.
Still… the way she said it lingered.
I didn’t mention it to my husband, James, that night. He’d just come home from another long shift at the call center, his face drawn and tired. I didn’t want to add “weird kid stories” to his list of worries.
For the next few days, everything seemed normal. Lina helped fetch diapers, sang lullabies (terribly off-key), and treated her sister, Elsie, like the most precious doll she’d ever owned.
And then she stopped mentioning secrets — for a while.
