I had dismissed my daughter’s sudden resistance to redecorating as ordinary childhood stubbornness, when it had been something else entirely: a child fighting, in the only way she could, to keep the last visible traces of her mother from being erased.

During a counseling session a few weeks later, with a family therapist we had begun seeing, Hannah finally put the worst of it into words.

“Brenda said you deserved to have a normal, fresh family, Dad,” she said, in a small voice.

“With new babies.

And that I was making everything harder for you, just because my real mom died.”

My hands closed into fists in my lap, and the counselor caught my eye with a small steadying look, reminding me without words to stay calm, so that my anger would not make Hannah feel, once again, that she had caused something bad by telling the truth.