The woman went into her desk and pulled out a flyer to hand to Ethic. “I don’t normally do this, but I realize you’re a single father. Bella is a young girl and she’s in a transitioning stage of her life. There is a debutante ball at my church. It’s for young ladies in the community. You don’t have to be a member. I think it would be good for her to participate. It’s sort of a ceremony to celebrate her growth and maturation. The first meeting is in a few weeks.”

He took the flyer and nodded. “She’ll be there,” he said. “Thanks for your time.” He stood and escorted Bella out of the school. He was angry, confused, but most of all concerned. They didn’t break the silence until they were inside his truck.

“What’s going on, baby girl?”

“Nothing is going on,” Bella snapped.

Ethic grit his teeth, as he looked out his window. He couldn’t even put his truck in drive because his heart was wrenched inside his chest.

“Bella…”

“I’ll start turning in my homework, okay? It’s not a big deal. It’s not like you care, anyway. You’re too busy worrying about Mo to even notice me,” Bella mumbled.

And there it was, the true root of the problem. Bella was jealous of the time he put into Morgan. He knew he had overcompensated with Morgan over the years, but he never thought how it would affect his own children. Bella was his first born, his baby girl. He had tried hard to make Morgan feel the same love that he, organically, produced for Bella. Perhaps, he hadn’t poured into them as equally as he had intended.

“Bella, just because I love Mo doesn’t mean I love you less. You are my daughter - blood born. The first person who taught me what forever felt like. You and I have a bond that no one can ever break. I love you each, equally, and I know I’ve given Mo a lot of attention because she was deaf and because she lost her parents and we all lost Raven. I’m sorry, baby girl, if I dropped the ball somewhere, but while I was loving her extra, it was only to make her feel like she got as much as you. You know that I love you, right?” he asked.

“Yes,” she whispered. “It’s just always about her; and I love Mo too, it’s just sometimes I want it to be about me.”

Ethic could see the hurt in her and it tugged at him the hard way. She didn’t even know that everything he did was about her…for her.