Chương 6
Noah nodded.
“Yeah.”
It was such an obvious statement that Rachel almost smiled.
Caleb looked at the blue bicycle.
“I’ll just sell it to that kid from Maple.”
“Okay.”
Noah looked at the bike for another second.
Then he turned away.
On the drive home, he did not speak.
Two blocks later Lily leaned forward.
“Why did you want it so bad?”
Noah stared through the windshield.
“Because everyone else can do jumps.”
“That’s dumb.”
“Lily.”
“What? It is.”
Noah turned in his seat.
“You don’t get it.”
“Then tell me.”
He looked at Rachel.
She kept driving.
Noah faced forward again.
“Owen said I ride like a baby.”
Lily frowned.
“So?”
“So everybody laughed.”
“Everybody who?”
“Owen. Ben. Caleb. The kids at the park.”
“Caleb didn’t laugh just now.”
“That was different.”
Lily leaned back.
After a moment she said, “You still ride like you.”
Noah turned slightly.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know.”
Rachel smiled despite herself.
Lily stared out the window.
Then she added, “You should’ve asked Mom.”
“She would’ve said no.”
Rachel said, “Correct.”
Noah groaned.
“But,” Rachel added, “I might have helped you make a plan to earn one.”
He looked over.
“You never said that.”
“You never asked.”
“I asked for one in March.”
“You pointed at a nine-hundred-dollar bicycle on a website and said, ‘Can I get this?’ That is not a financial plan.”
Lily laughed.
Noah tried not to.
He failed.
The sound lasted only a second.
It did not erase anything.
Rachel was grateful for it anyway.
When they returned, Claire’s car was gone.
Sophie was next door with Mr. Bell.
The entryway remained half cleaned. A towel still lay near the sofa. One sock had somehow ended up on the bottom stair.
Rachel placed the recovered cash on the kitchen counter.
“Where is the other eighty?”
Noah went to Lily’s backpack.
He stopped before touching it.
“Can I?”
Lily considered him.
“Yeah.”
He opened the front pocket and pulled out four twenty-dollar bills.
Rachel counted the full two hundred.
Then she put it into a clean envelope.
Noah watched.
“Are you giving it back to Grandma?”
“Yes.”
“Today?”
“I don’t know.”
He looked uneasy.
“What?”
“Is she coming back?”
Rachel did not answer immediately.
Lily looked at her too.
“I don’t know,” Rachel said.
It was the first honest answer available.
The party became a question at eleven forty.
Rachel stood in the kitchen looking at bowls of strawberries and stacks of napkins and the little paper banner Claire had hung over the cabinet doors that morning.
Lily sat at the island.
“Do you still want people to come?”
Lily shrugged.
“You can say no.”
“Will the cake still come?”
“Yes.”
“Even if nobody comes?”
“Yes.”
“Then maybe nobody.”
Rachel nodded.
“Okay.”
Lily picked at the corner of a paper napkin.
“Maybe Emma.”
“Just Emma?”
“And Ava.”
“Okay.”
“And Mr. Bell.”
“Mr. Bell was definitely planning to come.”
“And Sophie.”
“She lives here.”
“I know.”
“And Noah.”
Rachel waited.
Lily looked toward the family room where her brother sat alone.
“He can come if he doesn’t act weird.”
“I’ll convey the condition.”
For the first time that day, Rachel’s eyes burned.
She turned toward the sink and pretended to rinse a clean knife.
Lily said, “Mom.”
“Yeah?”
“Are you crying?”
“No.”
“You sound like it.”
“I’m aggressively washing a knife.”
“It was already clean.”
“I know.”
Lily watched her.
“Are you mad at me?”
Rachel put the knife down.
She dried her hands and went around the island.
“No.”
“Not even a little?”
“Not even a microscopic amount.”
“What if you thought I did it?”
Rachel stopped.
That question was harder.
Lily waited.
Rachel pulled out the stool beside her.
“If I came home and somebody told me two hundred dollars was found in your backpack, I would have asked you what happened.”
“But would you believe me?”
Rachel could have given the easy answer.
She did not.
“I hope I would.”
Lily frowned.
“That’s not yes.”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because parents can get things wrong.”
Lily stared at her.
Rachel took a breath.
“I want to tell you I would know immediately. I want to tell you there is no possible version of the world where I would doubt you for even one second. But if I say that, I’m making you a promise no person can honestly make.”
Lily’s eyes lowered.
Rachel continued.
“What I can promise is I would not punish you before I understood what happened. I would listen. I would ask questions. And if I got it wrong, I would say I got it wrong.”
Lily whispered, “Grandma didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Rachel looked toward the bright windows over the sink.
“I don’t know if Grandma knows how.”
That answer seemed to make sense to Lily in a way Rachel wished it did not.
They canceled most of the party.
Rachel sent brief messages to the parents without explaining why. Family situation. Lily wanted a smaller afternoon. Sorry for the short notice. Cake would be delivered anyway.
One mother replied with three heart emojis.
Another wrote, No problem at all.
Mason’s mother confirmed that Mason did, in fact, have strep.
Normal life kept intruding.
At twelve fifteen, the bakery called because the delivery driver could not find the house number behind the crepe myrtle.
At twelve twenty, Sophie returned from next door and announced that Mr. Bell kept butter in a dish instead of the refrigerator, which she considered dangerous.
At twelve thirty, Noah came into the kitchen holding a folded sheet of paper.
Rachel was putting ice into a metal tub.
“What’s that?”
“I wrote something.”
“To who?”
“Lily.”
Rachel turned off the ice maker.
“Did she ask for a letter?”
“No.”
“Then don’t make her read it.”
His shoulders dropped.
“I wasn’t.”
“Okay.”
He held the paper.
“What should I do?”
“Ask if she wants it.”
May you like
Lily was upstairs.
Noah stood at the bottom of the stairs for almost a minute before calling her name.
