Chương 6
Lily looked at Richard.
“You waited.”
He nodded.
“I did.”
“How long?”
“Since last night.”
“That’s not very long.”
“No.”
Gloria poured coffee into a mug.
“You want some?”
Richard looked at the coffee.
It had been sitting in the pot long enough to develop opinions.
“Yes, please.”
Gloria poured it.
He drank.
Lily watched his face.
He swallowed.
She smiled for the first time.
It was quick and mean and unmistakably Anna’s.
“Bad?”
Richard put down the mug.
“No.”
Gloria leaned against the counter.
“You’re a terrible liar.”
Lily smiled wider.
Something in Richard’s chest tightened so suddenly he had to look away.
Denise sat at the table.
“We’re going to talk about what happens next.”
Richard took the chair opposite Lily.
“No lawyers?” Denise asked.
“Not for this conversation.”
“Good.”
Lily stirred the cereal after it had already gone soggy.
Denise explained the process.
Family relationship verification.
Home inspection.
Temporary placement options.
Court review.
School continuity.
Counseling.
Richard listened.
Lily did not look at him.
When Denise finished, Richard said, “I can provide everything today.”
Denise sighed.
Lily looked up.
Richard stopped.
“What?”
“You’re doing it,” Lily said.
“Doing what?”
“What Mom said.”
Richard leaned back.
“All right. What am I doing?”
“Trying to finish everything before anybody else talks.”
Gloria turned her face toward the sink, but not before Richard saw the beginning of a smile.
He folded his hands.
“What would you like to say?”
Lily’s spoon scraped the bowl.
“I don’t want to live with you.”
The sentence hurt more than it should have.
Richard kept his face still.
Denise watched him.
“May I ask why?”
Lily shrugged.
“I don’t know you.”
“That’s fair.”
“You have security.”
“Yes.”
“That’s weird.”
“Sometimes.”
“You live in a giant house.”
Richard looked at Denise.
Denise was enjoying this.
“Yes.”
“I don’t want a giant house.”
“Why?”
“Too many bathrooms.”
Gloria laughed.
Lily stared at her.
“What? It is.”
Richard almost said something about bathrooms being manageable.
He stopped himself.
“What do you want?”
Lily looked at Gloria.
“I want to stay here until I decide.”
Denise said, “That can be discussed.”
Richard’s first instinct rose immediately.
The foster home was temporary.
There were legal efficiencies.
Better schools near his house.
Security.
Doctors.
Tutors.
Resources.
He heard every argument forming.
Then he saw Lily watching him.
Waiting.
Testing.
Richard put his palms flat on the table.
“All right.”
Lily blinked.
“That’s it?”
“No.”
“See?”
“But I can live with not getting everything I want this morning.”
Gloria handed him the bad coffee.
“You might survive after all.”
For the next week, Richard visited every afternoon.
He learned that Lily disliked eggs, loved orange soda, slept with a lamp on but denied being afraid of the dark, and peeled labels from water bottles when anxious.
He learned that she could read far above grade level and do multiplication only if nobody called it multiplication.
He learned that she hated sympathy from strangers.
He also learned that Anna had spoken about him more than he deserved.
Sometimes kindly.
Often not.
“My mom said you used to cut apples too thin,” Lily told him one afternoon.
Richard was sitting at Gloria’s kitchen table while Lily did homework.
“What does that mean?”
“She said you hated thick apple slices.”
“I still do.”
“That’s stupid.”
“It probably is.”
Another afternoon:
“My mom said you listened to old jazz when you were mad.”
“I listen to it when I’m thinking.”
“She said same thing.”
And later:
“She said you bought her a horse when she wanted you to come to a school play.”
Richard stopped turning the page of the book in his hand.
“I was in Singapore.”
“She said Chicago.”
He looked at Lily.
She looked back.
“Chicago,” he said.
Lily returned to her worksheet.
Richard did not correct himself again.
At home that night, he went into his office and searched his calendar archive.
The school play had been twenty-seven years earlier.
He had been in Chicago.
He stared at the old entry on the screen.
ANNUAL LENDERS DINNER.
Below it, added by an assistant long retired:
ANNA PLAY - 7 PM.
The second line had been marked canceled.
Not because the play was canceled.
Because he had canceled himself.
Richard closed the laptop.
He sat in the dark for a while.
Mara found him the next morning in the same suit.
“You look terrible.”
“Thank you.”
She put a file on his desk.
“We found something.”
Richard looked at it.
“Letters.”
He did not touch the file.
Mara sat.
“Three letters from Anna.”
His head lifted.
“Where?”
“Archive storage.”
“What archive storage?”
“The old family office records from the Connecticut property.”
Richard stared at her.
“Why would her letters be there?”
“Because they were sent to the house.”
“When?”
“Eight years ago. Five years ago. Eighteen months ago.”
Richard stood so quickly his chair rolled backward.
“No.”
Mara did not speak.
“No. I never saw them.”
“I believe you.”
“Who opened them?”
“No one, apparently.”
He stared.
Mara removed three envelopes from the file.
Each had been stamped and forwarded internally.
The first carried a handwritten note from an assistant.
PER MR. HALE’S STANDING INSTRUCTION: PERSONAL CORRESPONDENCE FROM A. CARTER TO ARCHIVE UNOPENED.
Richard sat down.
The room seemed to narrow.
“I gave that instruction before she married Daniel.”
Mara’s voice was quiet.
“Yes.”
“I was angry.”
“Yes.”
“I meant—”
He stopped.
There was no useful ending.
Mara pushed the envelopes toward him.
“Do you want me to stay?”
Richard touched the oldest one.
“No.”
She left.
For several minutes he did nothing.
Then he opened the first letter.
Dad,
I’m not writing to ask for money.
If that is the first thing you thought, you are still exactly who I remember.
Daniel died in May. I almost called you. I didn’t because I could already hear your voice telling me you warned me about everything.
There is someone I think you should know exists.
May you like
Her name is Lily.
She is eleven months old.
