I was fuming by the time that we left. I stormed up the ship’s steps and followed Amy out to the ramp and waited for Aaron to follow behind us. The cruise had set up to have a large outdoor breakfast buffet for guests, and I could quickly see that was where Amy was leading me. She didn’t stop to talk until we’d found a table and she sank down in her seat. Even though she was just a kid, she could still sense the tension between everyone.

I tried to take her hand but she pulled away as I spoke. “Honey, everything is going to be okay. Sometimes, adults have bad moods just like kids do. Grandma just needed a little bit of time. When was the last time you saw her?”

She shrugged. “Last year, I guess.”

“And don’t you think that this is a lot for someone her age to be doing? She’s probably having just as much fun as you, but she needs some down time.”

“You don’t know Grandma,” she muttered. “You don’t ever see her. She never gets in a bad mood like this.”

“Okay,” I said. “My bad then.”

Aaron sat down and tried to smile. The tensions around the table were so high that Amy sat back and looked from one parent to the other and back several times before clearing her throat. She was too young to be taking on the burden of a parental argument. I had to do something or else the entire day was going to be ruined. I stood up and smiled at Amy.

“Wanna go get some food?” I asked cheerfully.

She shrugged. “I guess.”

“Hey,” Aaron said, picking up on the tone. “You need to show your mother some respect, okay? I know you’re disappointed, but I’m not going to take you out to have a fun day if you’re going to act like a spoiled brat.”

“This isn’t fair!” she said.

Aaron didn’t give in to her. “Life isn’t fair, kiddo. So, what is it going to be? We can go back to the boat now and spend the afternoon in the room while everyone else has fun. I’m sure your mother wouldn’t mind some time to shop.”

She huffed but said nothing else. I got up and went to the buffet, picking and choosing foods that I knew Amy liked. I wasn’t part of the fight between the two of them but it was easy enough for me to see what was going on between them. I was her mother, yes. But I also wasn’t an active parent in her life. Her actions were going to have consequences, but they weren’t for me to decide. It was her father who ruled their house, not me. I needed to have time to know his rules for her.

“So, I got a little bit of everything,” I said to her.

She perked up a little as she started to pick at the berries on the plate. We ate in silence as Aaron sipped his coffee and watched the crowd mulling around. I couldn’t think about what to say to him. It was obvious what his mother had told him. I just wanted to hear it from him first. It was starting to look like we wouldn’t get our happily ever after, not if his mother had anything to say about it.

“Are we ready?” asked Amy, the pep in her step revitalized a little bit.

I nodded. “Absolutely. Let’s roast this chicken stand. So, where are we going first? I think we should go to the fort. It’s big and perfect for running around.”

“Okay,” she said weakly, but a little cheer returned to her as she ran ahead of us to wait on the trolley that was going to take us downtown.

“I’m sorry about earlier,” he muttered. “My mother just has a way of getting under my skin.”

“Are you going to tell me what the fight was about?” I asked him.

He shrugged. “There was no fight. She told me that she knew I was lying and said that she didn’t want to spend any time with us today.”

“I feel like she is saying she doesn’t want to spend time with me. I ruined your family vacation just by being here.”

“You didn’t ruin anything,” he hissed. “Can we please not talk about this right now? I just want us to have a good day with Amy.”

“No,” I snarled at him. “You want me to be part of this family? Then I have a right to know what’s going on in it, okay? This isn’t a game to me or just a ploy to make everything seem happy.”

“You think I’m playing some kind of game?” he shot back. “I did everything I could to get you back here, even after five years of hearing nothing from you. Don’t you think you owe me a little bit of trust because of that?”

“Mom?” asked Amy.

I spun around. Neither of us had seen her standing behind me. Her eyes grew wide, tears threatening to spill out of them as she looked between her father and me. I didn’t know how much of the conversation she had heard, but it was enough to put her off balance. She had never seen us fight before. Even when she was a younger child, we’d made sure that any arguments we had were kept between us and never in front of her.

“Amy, honey,” said Aaron. “Mom and I were just talking.”

She shook her head vigorously. “No, you were fighting. You haven’t seen each other in a long time, and all you want to do is fight! This wouldn’t happen if Grandma were with us!”

Before either of us could say anything to her, she bolted. Aaron yelled after her but it didn’t do any good. She took off into the crowd. A feeling of panic stronger than any I’d ever known set in as we chased after her. She dodged and ran around people, making her way back to the cruise ship. It was evident that she was going back to Theresa, and I wondered if I should even go after her. With everything that had happened, I didn’t think that Theresa would want to see me.

Still, my daughter was in a strange country, running to a boat that was too big for her to find her way around. Aaron ran past me, hot on Amy’s trail. I skidded to a stop at the check-in point and breathlessly got the attention of the tanned man in a crew uniform that held the device to scan passenger wristbands.

“My daughter,” I huffed out. “She just ran on the boat. We’re passengers, but I don’t know if she is going to be able to find her way to our cabin or not.”

“Not a problem,” he said, quickly picking up his intercom. “We have a little girl,” he scanned my bracelet. “Passenger number seven-three-two-six. She is approximately nine years old, brown hair and brown eyes. If she is found, please keep her at the information desk.”

“What if she tries to get off the boat again?” I asked.

He looked slightly annoyed, and I knew what he was thinking as he requested extra staff to watch the other exits. He thought that we were bad parents for letting our child run around unattended. I wanted to slap him across the face for the subtle implication. We weren’t bad parents, or at least Aaron wasn’t a bad parent. I had let her run away, so I was still not the best role model. I wondered if he knew how hard it was to control a temperamental nine-year-old.

“Anything?” I asked Aaron breathlessly as I found him.

He shook his head. “No. What are we going to do if she gets off the boat?”

I told him what I did at the front and he closed his eyes in relief. “That was a great idea. I never would have thought about that. One of us should go down to the cabin and wait for her in case she makes it back while the other person searches for her.”

“I will look for her,” I said quickly. “No offense, but I don’t really want to be stuck in a room with your mother.”

“Not this time,” he muttered, to my shock. “Sorry, Julia, but I know Amy better than anyone else. If anyone knows where she is or what path she will take to get back to the room, it’s me. Plus, she might not even be there anymore. I know she wanted to spend some time with Marcel.”

“Are you joking? You’re really going to put me in that position?”

“Are you joking?” he shot back, his voice growing louder. “I’m worried about our daughter more than anything else, not how you feel about having alone time with my mother, dammit.”

I shrank away from him but knew that he was right. “Fine.”

He reached for my arm, instantly regretting raising his voice, but I jerked my arm away from him and stormed off. I didn’t want to hear him apologize or anything else. I knew that he was right, but I didn’t want to admit it. Storming in the direction of the room, I fumed at him and my heart raced for Amy. She was the most important person in the world to me. I carefully unlocked the door and slipped inside. All hope of having the room to myself vanished when Theresa turned around and saw me.

“Well, I guess that little excursion didn’t last long.”

“I’m sorry,” I muttered. “It’s Amy. She got so upset when she found out that you weren’t coming with us that she ran back onto the ship. We were hoping that she found her way here.”

At once, Theresa was worried, everything else getting tucked away for another time. “She isn’t here. Do we need to go look for her?”

I shook my head. “Aaron has it under control. He wanted me to wait here in case she came back.”

“Well, then, I guess we have a little time to talk, don’t we?”

I swallowed back the panic. “I guess. Was there something you wanted to talk about, particularly?”

She smiled knowingly. “Julia. I know that Aaron told you. I heard your conversation last night. Why didn’t you reach out to him for help?”

“I don’t know. Things were different back then than they are now. We’re just trying to get through the next week before making any decisions.”

“I think that decision has already been made, though, don’t you?”

“What are you talking about?” I muttered.

She laughed and patted the spot on the couch next to me. “Julia, I always did like you. When you left and I started to see more of Aaron and Amy, I knew that something wasn’t right. I thought about saying something to both of you, but it wasn’t my place. I have a good life in Arizona and you had a good one in California too.”

“Then I left and ruined everything to help that woman,” I muttered.

“You left with good intentions. I know that you still love my son. I just hope that he can figure out a way to keep you.”

I laughed. “There is no reason to figure that out. I just want to make sure my past doesn’t follow me back home with them. You don’t know what that woman is capable of.”

“Honey, those are things that you face as a family, not as a single person. Won’t you let us support you?”

“I—” I said. “I thought that you wouldn’t want me after knowing what you know.”

She grinned at me just as Aaron’s familiar voice came down the hallway. “You’re wrong. We all love you and want you to come home.”