Chương 9
At the bottom he added: I should have protected Lily before I worried about protecting my marriage.
Evan read that sentence several times.
Rachel read the letter that night.
“What do you think?”
“I think he knew enough.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
Evan smiled faintly.
“You’re contagious.”
“I’ve always been like this.”
He set the letter on the table.
“I believe him.”
“So do I.”
“I’m still angry.”
“You’re allowed.”
“He wants to see Lily.”
Rachel looked toward the ceiling.
“She asks about him.”
“I know.”
“She hasn’t asked for Diane.”
“I know.”
Rachel rubbed her thumb along a scratch in the tabletop.
“What if he comes here alone?”
“Not here.”
“Park?”
“Maybe.”
“You don’t have to decide tonight.”
Evan looked at her.
“That is very unlike you.”
“I’m growing.”
Tom met Lily at a park the following Sunday.
Evan and Rachel stayed nearby.
Tom arrived carrying nothing.
Evan noticed that.
No presents.
No stuffed animal purchased as apology by proxy.
No envelope from Diane.
He wore the same checked shirt he often wore on weekends.
Lily stood beside the swings and stared at him.
Tom stopped several feet away.
“Hi, kiddo.”
“Hi.”
“I’m sorry.”
She looked at Evan.
He did not rescue either of them.
Tom continued.
“I knew Grandma was doing something wrong and I didn’t tell your dad.”
Lily scuffed one sneaker against the mulch.
“Did you know she would hit me?”
“No.”
“Did you know she said he wasn’t my real dad?”
“No.”
“Would you have told?”
Tom’s face changed.
“I want to say yes.”
Lily looked at him.
Tom swallowed.
“I don’t know.”
Evan felt that answer in his chest.
It was not the answer a grandfather was supposed to give.
It was probably the only useful one.
Lily pointed toward the swings.
“Can you push me?”
Tom looked at Evan.
Evan nodded.
For twenty minutes Tom pushed her while she shouted instructions.
Higher.
Not that high.
Higher again.
Stop twisting the chains.
You’re doing it wrong.
At one point Tom laughed.
Lily laughed too.
Evan hated how relieved he felt.
Relationships were inconvenient that way.
A person could fail you terribly and still know exactly how high your child liked to swing.
Diane sent her first letter to Evan the next day.
He returned it unopened.
The second came a week later.
He put it in a drawer.
The third was addressed to Rachel.
Rachel opened it.
Evan found her at the kitchen table after Lily was asleep.
“Well?”
Rachel slid the letter across.
It was short.
Rachel,
I am sorry I hit Lily. There is no excuse for it. I was angry that she repeated something private, which is not a reason to hit a child. I am also sorry I contacted Aaron without telling you or Evan. I believed I was protecting my son and I used that belief to justify things I knew he would not consent to. I made the adoption harder because I wanted control over a decision that was not mine.
I do not expect you to forgive me.
Diane
Evan read it twice.
“She didn’t say she was wrong about me.”
Rachel looked at him.
“What?”
“She said she was wrong to interfere. She didn’t say she was wrong about the adoption.”
“Does that matter?”
“Yes.”
Rachel thought about it.
“Okay.”
“She still thinks she was right.”
“Maybe.”
“She just thinks she used the wrong method.”
“Maybe.”
He folded the letter.
Rachel watched him.
“You want her to understand.”
“Yes.”
“She may not.”
“I know.”
“That might be the part you don’t get to control.”
He gave her a look.
She raised both hands.
“I know. Terrible news.”
At Lily’s next counseling appointment, Dana asked the parents to join the last fifteen minutes.
Lily had drawn three houses.
One was theirs.
One belonged to Tom and Diane.
The third was labeled AARON? in large uneven letters.
Evan stared at it.
Dana said, “Lily has a question she wants to ask both of you.”
Lily looked suddenly shy.
Rachel took her hand.
“What is it?”
“If Daddy adopts me, do I stop being Aaron’s kid?”
Rachel started to answer.
Evan touched her wrist.
Not to stop her.
To keep them from answering too quickly.
He said, “You don’t stop coming from Aaron.”
Lily frowned.
“But am I his kid?”
Evan glanced at Dana.
She remained neutral.
No rescue.
He tried again.
“Aaron helped make you. I’m the dad who raises you.”
“And Mom?”
Rachel said, “I get all jobs.”
Lily smiled.
“Unfair.”
“Completely.”
Lily looked down at her drawing.
“So I can have parts that are Aaron and still be yours?”
“Yes,” Evan said.
She seemed satisfied.
Adults had spent thousands of dollars and weeks of anger reaching a sentence a six-year-old accepted in twelve seconds.
On the way home she asked for chicken nuggets.
The following week Tom asked Evan to meet him at a diner.
Evan almost said no.
Then Tom texted a photograph of a bank statement.
A withdrawal for fifteen hundred dollars from the joint savings account.
Evan went.
Tom was already in a booth, drinking coffee that looked as if it had been brewed during the previous presidential administration.
He slid the statement across.
“She paid Aaron’s lawyer from your joint account.”
“Apparently.”
“You didn’t know.”
“No.”
“What are you doing about it?”
Tom stirred his coffee though he had not added sugar.
“I moved half the savings into an account she can’t touch.”
Evan stared at him.
“That seems dramatic.”
“I’m seventy-two. Dramatic is changing cable companies.”
Despite himself, Evan smiled.
Tom did not.
“I’m staying with your aunt for a while.”
Evan’s smile disappeared.
“You left?”
“I didn’t leave the marriage.”
“Sounds like leaving.”
“I needed somewhere quiet.”
Evan looked out the window.
Traffic crawled past the diner.
A delivery van blocked half the entrance to the parking lot while a driver argued with somebody over the phone.
“What does she say?”
May you like
“That I’m choosing you over her.”
“Are you?”
