Chương 6
The police eventually told me they were moving forward with the case.
They had witness statements.
They had my father's statement.
They had my account.
They had messages from guests who had been there.
They had enough to keep investigating.
But enough was not the same as certainty.
I learned that quickly.
People wanted justice to move like movies.
A crime happened.
Someone admitted it.
Everyone understood.
The truth won.
Real life was slower.
Real life involved phone calls that weren't returned.
Meetings that had to be scheduled.
People who changed their stories after talking to someone else.
Two weeks after the shower, my mother posted a statement online.
Not about Lily.
Not about me.
About herself.
She wrote that she had experienced "a painful family misunderstanding during an emotional gathering."
A painful family misunderstanding.
I read that sentence three times.
Then I put my phone down.
My father saw it.
He was sitting at my kitchen table fixing the loose hinge on one of my cabinets.
He had started doing small repairs again.
I think he needed something he could control.
Something with screws and measurements.
Something that didn't fight back.
"She posted something," I said.
He stopped turning the screwdriver.
"About what?"
"About the shower."
His shoulders dropped.
"Of course she did."
I handed him the phone.
He read silently.
When he finished, he didn't look angry.
That surprised me.
He looked tired.
"She still thinks the problem is how people see her."
I sat across from him.
"Do you think she knows what she did?"
He didn't answer right away.
That was the hardest thing about my father.
He never lied quickly.
He always gave the truth time to hurt before he released it.
"No."
The answer sat between us.
"No?"
"I think she knows what happened."
He placed my phone on the table.
"But I don't think she understands why it was wrong."
I looked toward the window.
Outside, my neighbor was watering flowers.
A man walked past with a dog that kept stopping to sniff every tree.
Ordinary life.
It felt almost offensive that the world could still be ordinary.
"How can someone not understand that?" I asked.
My father looked at the cabinet he was repairing.
"Because if she admits what she did, she has to admit what she has been for a long time."
I knew he was right.
That didn't make it easier.
A few days later, Rebecca asked to meet.
Not at my house.
Not hers.
A coffee shop twenty minutes away.
I almost refused.
Then I remembered the look on her face when she admitted the truth.
So I went.
She was already there.
She had chosen a table near the window.
Old Rebecca would have chosen the most comfortable seat.
The seat where everyone could see her.
This Rebecca sat with her back partially turned to the room.
Like she didn't want attention.
"I didn't know if you would come," she said.
"I almost didn't."
She nodded.
"I know."
For a while, we just sat there.
The coffee shop was busy.
A woman at the next table was helping a child with homework.
Someone behind us laughed too loudly.
A blender started near the counter.
Normal sounds.
Normal people.
I hated that normal existed.
"I talked to the detective," Rebecca said.
I looked up.
"What did you tell her?"
"The truth."
The word sounded strange coming from her.
"I told her Mom planned it."
I waited.
"And?"
Rebecca looked down at her coffee.
"She asked why I didn't tell anyone sooner."
"What did you say?"
She swallowed.
"I said I was scared."
That answer made me angry.
Not because it wasn't true.
Because it was.
"Scared of what?"
Rebecca looked at me.
"Of losing her."
I didn't respond.
"I know how that sounds."
"It sounds like you were more afraid of losing Mom than you were afraid of losing Lily."
Rebecca closed her eyes.
"I know."
The conversation could have ended there.
Maybe it should have.
But something stopped me.
"What changed?"
She looked confused.
"What?"
"Why tell the truth now?"
Rebecca traced a finger around the edge of her cup.
"Because after the fire, Mom didn't ask if Lily was alive."
My stomach tightened.
"What did she ask?"
Rebecca's eyes filled.
"She asked what everyone saw."
The answer was quiet.
Almost impossible to hear.
But it explained everything.
My mother had not been focused on the baby.
She had been focused on the story.
The witness list.
The damage.
The version of herself people would believe.
Rebecca wiped her face.
"I went to her house yesterday."
I looked at her.
"Why?"
"Because I wanted her to say she was sorry."
A bitter smile crossed her face.
"That was stupid."
"What happened?"
"She said you were manipulating everyone."
I felt a coldness move through me.
"Me?"
Rebecca nodded.
"She said you always wanted to be the victim."
The anger came quickly.
Hot.
Sharp.
Then something unexpected followed.
Sadness.
Because I knew my mother.
I knew that sentence.
She had used it before.
Every time someone was hurt by her actions, she made the injury the problem.
"She also said something else," Rebecca whispered.
"What?"
Rebecca looked at me.
"She said she only did what she did because she knew you would forgive her eventually."
The coffee shop noise faded.
People moved around us.
A chair scraped.
A cup hit a table.
But all I could hear was that sentence.
Because that was the thing I had spent my entire life doing.
Forgiving.
Explaining.
Understanding.
Making excuses.
My mother had built her entire world around the belief that my love was something she could spend without ever replacing.
I looked out the window.
For the first time, I understood something I had been avoiding.
The fire was not only the moment my mother almost took my daughter.
It was the moment I finally stopped offering her matches.
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The next morning, I woke up before Lily cried.
That had become my new habit.
