Daughter’s Regret After Telling the Truth
My daughter Lyra believed the Moon Goddess had given our kind one virtue above all others: honesty. So she never told a single lie.
I put on a newly bought lipstick and turned in front of the mirror.
"Sweetheart, does Mommy look pretty today?"
She glanced up at me.
"Honestly, Mommy, you were ugly to start with, and that color only makes it worse."
One evening I was scrambling around the kitchen while my mother-in-law scolded me for not being able to cook a decent meal.
I asked Lyra, "Grandma says Mommy's useless. Does that upset you?"
She kept stacking her blocks. "Honestly, I'm actually glad you're getting scolded."
That night, while my husband read her a bedtime story, he asked whether she would take care of me when I was old and could no longer walk.
She thought it over seriously, then rolled onto her other side.
"No way. A useless wolf should just go off and die on its own."
Something in me went cold.
She only grinned. "But I'm just telling the truth."
Later, when a caseworker from the Pup Welfare Council came to register us for the census and asked Lyra a few routine questions, she insisted on telling nothing but the truth.
This time, though, it was a truth she would regret for the rest of her life.