Chương 5
Lily stared.
“I almost didn’t recognize you.”
Maria looked down at herself.
“I own pants.”
“I know.”
“Your face suggests otherwise.”
Lily ate another spoonful.
Maria poured coffee.
Eleanor lowered her phone.
“Good. You’re here.”
Maria nodded.
“I didn’t know if I should be.”
“You should.”
“Mr. Bennett said I could stay home.”
“Ethan says many things.”
“Mom.”
He had entered without Lily hearing.
Eleanor looked at him.
“I assume your lawyer said something unpleasant.”
“Caroline’s lawyer.”
“Worse.”
Ethan poured coffee.
He had shaved properly.
Lily checked.
He noticed.
“Yes, I got the other side too.”
She looked down at her cereal.
Ethan leaned against the counter.
“Caroline is claiming she had an emotional breakdown.”
Maria’s cup stopped halfway to her mouth.
Eleanor sighed.
“Convenient.”
“Mom.”
“What? It may also be true.”
Ethan looked at Lily.
He did not continue.
Lily saw that too.
“You can say it.”
“Honey—”
“I know she lied.”
“This is adult stuff.”
“She did it to me.”
The room became quiet.
Ethan set down his coffee.
“You’re right.”
Maria looked at him, surprised.
Ethan rubbed his forehead.
“Her attorney says Caroline had become convinced that you were trying to break up our marriage.”
Lily stared.
“How?”
“I don’t know.”
“I’m seven.”
“I am aware.”
“Did she think I had a plan?”
Eleanor murmured, “Apparently a very sophisticated one.”
Ethan gave her a look.
She raised both hands.
Lily frowned.
“I don’t care if she was sad.”
“No one is asking you to.”
“Then why are you telling me?”
Because Ethan had decided that morning not to hide the process from her.
Not entirely.
He pulled out the stool beside Lily and sat down.
“Because you deserve to know the explanation people are giving for what happened to you.”
“It’s a stupid explanation.”
“It may be.”
“It is.”
“Probably.”
“Dad.”
“Yes. It’s stupid.”
She nodded, satisfied.
Maria hid a smile.
Then Ethan added, “But stupid explanations can still be real.”
Lily looked at him.
“What does that mean?”
“It means Caroline may have believed things that weren’t true.”
“Like what?”
Ethan glanced at Maria.
Then Eleanor.
Neither helped him.
He had to answer.
“She thought I was going to leave her.”
“Were you?”
Ethan’s face changed.
There was the first crack.
“No.”
Lily watched him too carefully.
“You paused.”
“I’m trying to answer you correctly.”
“That means maybe.”
Eleanor looked at her son with open interest.
Ethan exhaled.
“Caroline and I were having problems.”
“What problems?”
“Private ones.”
“She put diamonds in my bed because of private problems?”
The sentence landed.
Ethan looked down at the counter.
“No.”
“So tell me.”
He rubbed his palms together.
“I had told her I thought we needed counseling.”
“What’s counseling?”
“Talking to someone who helps people work through problems.”
“Like a doctor?”
“Sort of.”
“Did she say no?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“She didn’t think the problem was between us.”
Lily stopped eating.
“Me?”
Ethan did not answer.
He did not need to.
The cereal became hard to swallow.
Maria stepped closer.
Lily pushed the bowl away.
“What did I do?”
“Nothing.”
“She thought I did.”
“That does not mean you did.”
“What did she think?”
Ethan’s voice softened.
“She thought I chose you over her.”
Lily stared at him.
“You’re my dad.”
“I know.”
“She’s weird.”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
Maria turned away, shoulders shaking once.
Even Ethan laughed.
It lasted only a second, but the room needed it.
Then Lily asked, “Did you?”
“Did I what?”
“Choose me.”
Ethan looked at his daughter.
“Yes.”
The answer was immediate.
Lily absorbed it.
Then nodded.
“Good.”
Ethan laughed again, but there were tears in his eyes this time.
The legal question became more complicated by lunchtime.
Caroline’s attorney argued that the necklace remained Caroline’s property and no theft had occurred because she had never intended to deprive herself of it permanently.
Ethan’s attorney, a calm woman named Renee Walsh, said the point was not the necklace.
The point was the false accusation and the deliberate attempt to create evidence against a child.
They spoke in the study.
Lily was not supposed to be listening.
She was.
Maria found her sitting on the floor outside the door.
“You’re terrible at hiding.”
Lily scooted back against the wall.
“I’m not hiding.”
“You are behind a plant.”
“I like this plant.”
Maria looked at the enormous fiddle-leaf fig.
“Since when?”
“Today.”
Maria sat beside her.
Inside the study, Renee said, “The more important issue may be whether she intended to trigger a police report or insurance claim.”
Ethan replied, “She mentioned both.”
“Did she contact either?”
“Not that we can find.”
“That matters.”
Lily looked at Maria.
“What’s insurance fraud?”
Maria stared at her.
“You heard that?”
“The door is bad.”
“The door is three inches thick.”
“They talk loud.”
Maria rubbed her forehead.
“Please don’t say insurance fraud at school.”
“Why?”
“Because I would like one peaceful week.”
Lily leaned against the wall.
“Are you scared?”
Maria’s smile disappeared.
“Yes.”
“Of Caroline?”
“Some.”
“Of losing your job?”
“Less now.”
“Then what?”
Maria picked at a loose thread near her jeans.
“Of what happens when people know I waited.”
Lily considered that.
“You told.”
“Eventually.”
“You were scared.”
“That doesn’t make waiting right.”
“But you told.”
Maria looked at her.
Lily shrugged.
“You said adults do things when they’re scared.”
“I said that?”
“Not those words.”
Maria leaned her head back against the wall.
“Your grandmother is right.”
“About what?”
“You are exhausting.”
Lily smiled.
At two that afternoon, the first message from Caroline arrived.
Not to Ethan.
To Lily.
It appeared on the child-safe messaging app Ethan had installed on Lily’s tablet.
Caroline was still listed as a parent contact.
Lily read it before the system administrator could remove her.
I am sorry you were frightened. I never meant for this to become what it became.
Lily read it twice.
She showed Maria.
Maria’s face hardened.
“Don’t answer.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“Good.”
May you like
Lily stared at the sentence.
“She didn’t say she was sorry she did it.”
