Chương 8
A director cleared his throat. “We should adjourn until counsel—”
“No,” Celeste said.
Damian continued. “An independent review will include your handling of Eva’s visit and any communication she left.”
“You are retaliating because I protected you during a period of incapacity.”
“You hid a child during a period when you found me easier to control.”
Celeste’s face finally tightened. “Be careful.”
“I have spent most of my life being careful around you.”
He ended the call.
When Naomi and Lily returned, they found him staring at the black screen.
“Did you win?” Lily asked.
“No.”
“Did your mother?”
“No.”
“Then what happened?”
“Everyone became angrier.”
Lily nodded as if this made sense. “That happens when nobody wins.”
They spent the afternoon at Naomi’s apartment because Lily refused every hotel Damian suggested and Naomi refused his offer of a short-term rental. The reporters had been moved to the opposite sidewalk by police, though cameras remained pointed at the building.
Inside, the apartment was crowded but orderly. Children’s books shared shelves with nursing manuals. A drying rack blocked half the kitchen. Lily’s drawings covered the refrigerator beneath alphabet magnets and appointment reminders.
Damian stood near the door, uncertain where to put his coat.
“Chair,” Lily said.
He placed it over a kitchen chair.
“Not that one. It wobbles.”
He moved it.
Naomi watched him from the counter. “You can sit.”
“I don’t want to take your place.”
“There are three chairs, a couch, and a floor. We are not conducting a state dinner.”
Damian sat on the couch. A spring pressed into his back.
“I told you,” Lily said. “It hurts.”
“It does.”
Naomi filled a kettle. “Try sleeping there.”
Lily brought Damian a plastic container filled with photographs. “Mom said you would want these, but you don’t get to take them.”
“I understand.”
She sat on the rug and removed the lid.
The first photograph showed Eva kneeling beside a little girl in red rain boots. Her hair was shorter than Damian remembered, and she wore no makeup. She looked thinner, older, and happier in a way that hurt him.
He touched the edge of the photograph.
“How old were you here?”
“Three.”
“Where was this?”
“The zoo. The flamingos smelled bad.”
“They always do.”
“You’ve seen them?”
“Yes.”
“With Mom?”
“No.”
Lily handed him another picture. Eva slept on the couch with newborn Lily against her chest. The gray rabbit sat beside them, its ears still intact.
“Mr. Gray was hers,” Lily said. “Her dad gave him to her.”
“I remember.”
“You do?”
“She kept him in a box because she was embarrassed.”
“Why?”
“She was twenty-eight.”
“That’s not old.”
“Not to you.”
Lily considered him. “You’re old.”
Naomi laughed from the kitchen.
Damian turned over another photograph. Eva stood outside a small apartment building holding Lily’s hand. On the back, in blue ink, she had written First day of kindergarten. Lily cried. I did not, except in the laundromat, which does not count.
The handwriting made the room tilt.
Damian set the photograph down.
Lily noticed. “Do you need water?”
“No. Thank you.”
“Mom needed water when she was trying not to cry.”
He looked at her.
“I am trying,” he said.
“You said people don’t have to be good at loving.”
“Yes.”
“Do they have to be good at trying?”
“No.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It may not.”
Naomi brought tea to the table. She placed one mug near Damian without asking whether he wanted it.
“Evelyn kept an audio diary during treatment,” she said. “Mostly for Lily. Some recordings mention you.”
“May I hear them?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether Lily wants to hear them too. And whether her therapist thinks it’s appropriate.”
“She has a therapist?”
“Her school counselor referred us when Evelyn entered hospice.”
Damian nodded. “Good.”
“You sound relieved.”
“I am.”
“I expected you to offer a more expensive therapist.”
“I thought about it.”
“I know.”
He lifted the tea. It was too hot. “I am trying not to arrange the world.”
Naomi leaned against the counter. “You keep announcing that like a man describing withdrawal.”
“It feels similar.”
Lily had begun tying the faded thread around Mr. Gray’s paw.
“Did Eva ever ask you for money?” Damian asked.
Naomi’s expression sharpened. “No.”
“Did she need it?”
“Everyone with cancer and a child needs money.”
“Why didn’t she contact me then?”
“She did not want you to think the illness made her willing to surrender Lily.”
“I could have helped without conditions.”
Naomi gave him a long look.
“Could you?”
The answer he wanted to give would have been immediate. The honest one took longer.
“I don’t know.”
Naomi nodded. “That’s why.”
She explained that Eva had worked as a freelance architectural photographer until treatment made travel impossible. She had sold equipment, used public assistance, accepted help from friends, and hidden the worst bills from Lily. Naomi had covered rent twice. Mrs. Bell downstairs had provided groceries and after-school care. A local church had paid for the cremation, although Eva had not attended in years.
Damian listened without interrupting.
Each fact revealed a life that had continued beyond him through ordinary forms of generosity: casseroles, school pickups, borrowed money, a neighbor sitting beside a hospital bed. He had imagined help as something large enough to require his signature. Eva had survived through people who gave what they had rather than what would be noticed.
“Where are her ashes?” he asked.
Naomi looked toward Lily.
Lily answered. “In my closet.”
Damian blinked.
“The funeral home gave us a box,” Lily said. “Naomi says we can choose an urn later.”
“Mom hated ugly jars,” Naomi added.
“She hated most decorative objects,” Damian said.
“She liked the ceramic bird in our kitchen.”
“That bird was hideous.”
Lily gasped. “She made it.”
“I know. That is why I kept it for three years.”
“Where is it now?”
May you like
Damian’s mouth closed.
When Eva left, he had thrown the bird against the kitchen wall. He had watched its blue wing slide beneath the refrigerator and had ordered the entire kitchen remodeled the following week.
