City of the Dead (Alex Delaware, #37)(91)

I said, “The easy part first. Don’t bring her dad up until she does, then tell her he has to be away for a while.”

“Technically honest.”

“And compassionate, Toni. No way Philly should be dealing with homicide. If he really wasn’t a big factor in her life, he’ll fade.”

“He wasn’t,” she said. “I swear. What’s the hard part?”

“As she gets older, she’ll get curious and will need age-appropriate answers. I’m not going to cookbook those in advance. Your best bet will be to find a local child psychologist or psychiatrist and explain the situation. If their guidance makes sense, go with it.”

“If not?”

“Get someone else, Toni. Trust your instincts.”

“They’re good?”

I nodded.

She said, “That means so much to me. Will you help me find someone?”

“No problem.”

“Thank you, Dr. Delaware. I guess the main thing that’s eating at me—besides what he did, besides the fact that I lived with a monster and was too obtuse to know it—besides all that, I need to honestly know if my baby is destined to be screwed up emotionally?”

“No.”

She blinked. “No?” she said. “Just like that?”

“You’ll provide her with love and attention and work on developing her resilience. There’ll be challenges but with support, she’ll learn to deal with them.”

“You sound pretty sure of yourself.”

“I’m not minimizing the situation, Toni. There’ll be bumps along the way. Adolescence may prove especially tough because that’s when teens wrestle with their identities. But I’ve found clinically, and there’s research to back me up, that people do better than experts predict. With proper support there’s no reason to think Philomena will be crippled psychologically.”

“How do you define proper support?”

I said, “If I gave you a pat answer, I wouldn’t be doing you a favor. The main thing will be to treat Philomena like a regular kid and be available when she asks questions. I’ll get you a couple of referrals and if they don’t work out, let me know. If you need to reach out to me at any time, I’ll get back to you.”

She tugged at her ponytail. “By regular kid you mean…”

“Don’t over-shelter her or over-indulge her. Basically, do what you were doing before this terrible thing.”

“Terrible thing,” she said. “I knew he was a jerk but…no sense thinking about that—okay, got it. This helps, I really appreciate it. And I probably will want to reach out.”

At the door, she said, “Oops, I almost forgot.” Pulling a checkbook out of her purse, she tore off a check and handed it to me.

I said, “This is way too much.”

“Doctor,” she said, touching my hand, “please let me be the judge of that. I need to feel autonomous.”

Before I could argue, she’d flung the door open, run down the stairs and into her Range Rover.

Revving up toward the redline, she peeled out, tires squealing in the gravel, setting off a miniature dust storm.

Seconds later, the dust had settled.

Like any silence that follows noise, especially sweet.

Back to a gorgeous day.