Chương 10
Nobody mentioned the trophy.
For forty minutes it almost felt normal.
Then Lily left the table, went upstairs, and returned carrying it.
Vanessa stopped speaking.
Lily put the trophy on the table between them.
The ribbon remained knotted.
The old card had dried with a brown mark in one corner.
Vanessa stared at it.
Lily climbed back into her chair.
“Coach Rachel said I can go to the state qualifier.”
Daniel knew this.
Vanessa did not.
“That’s great,” she said.
Lily watched her closely.
Vanessa added, “Do you want to?”
“I think.”
“That’s a hard meet.”
“I know.”
Vanessa’s old instinct surfaced.
Daniel saw it before she spoke.
The urge to advise.
Correct.
Prepare.
Control.
She pressed her lips together.
Then she asked, “Are you excited?”
Lily nodded.
“And scared?”
Another nod.
“That makes sense.”
Lily touched the trophy ribbon.
“Mom would be proud.”
Vanessa’s eyes dropped.
Daniel stopped breathing for a moment.
There it was.
The test nobody had planned.
Vanessa looked at Emily’s handwriting.
“Yes,” she said.
Her voice shook.
“She would.”
Lily waited.
Vanessa looked at her.
“And I am too.”
Lily’s shoulders lowered.
Not completely.
Enough.
Later, after Margaret and Vanessa left, Daniel found Lily in the living room turning the trophy slowly in her hands.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
He sat beside her.
She touched the knot.
“Can we fix this better?”
Daniel looked at it.
“I thought my repair was excellent.”
“It looks like a worm.”
“That is hurtful.”
She smiled.
Daniel took the trophy.
“We can replace the ribbon.”
Lily shook her head quickly.
“No.”
“No?”
“I want this one.”
“The cut one?”
She nodded.
Daniel understood.
“Okay.”
They searched online for ways to repair frayed ribbon.
Daniel bought fabric sealant and immediately regretted the smell.
Lily held the ends while he trimmed loose threads.
They did not hide the cut.
They overlapped the two pieces and stitched them together by hand because Lily insisted glue would “look fake.”
Daniel’s stitching was terrible.
Lily’s was worse.
Together they created a repair that looked less like a worm and more like a scar.
They were proud of it.
The state qualifier arrived six weeks later.
Lily nearly refused to compete.
Not because of Vanessa.
Because she fell during warmups.
Her foot slipped on the beam, and although the mat caught her, the shock embarrassed her.
Daniel watched her sit near the chalk station, arms folded tightly.
Rachel crouched beside her.
Daniel stayed on the other side of the barrier.
Every instinct told him to go to her.
He did not.
Rachel spoke.
Lily shook her head.
Rachel said something else.
Lily looked toward the bleachers.
She found Daniel.
He raised one hand.
Not a fist.
Not a thumbs-up.
Just a hand.
I’m here.
Lily stared at him.
Then she looked two rows farther up.
Vanessa sat beside Margaret.
She had asked Daniel before buying a ticket.
He had asked Lily.
Lily had said yes.
Vanessa did not wave.
She seemed to understand the assignment better than Daniel did.
She stayed still.
Lily turned back to Rachel.
A minute later she stood.
She competed.
She did not win.
On beam, the event that had earned her the little trophy weeks earlier, she wobbled badly after a turn and had to windmill one arm to stay up.
Daniel’s stomach dropped.
Lily recovered.
Finished.
Saluted.
Her score was lower than her personal best.
She qualified anyway through her all-around total, barely.
When the results appeared, Lily stared at them.
Daniel waited for celebration.
Instead she cried.
Not loudly.
She covered her face with both hands.
Rachel hugged her first.
Daniel reached her after the athletes were released.
Lily pressed into him.
“I almost fell.”
“I saw.”
“I messed up.”
“Yep.”
She pulled back, offended.
“You’re supposed to say I didn’t.”
“You did.”
Lily stared.
Daniel smiled.
“And then you kept going.”
Her face changed.
Behind her, Vanessa approached slowly.
She stopped several feet away.
Lily saw her.
For a second Daniel expected uncertainty.
Instead Lily held out one arm.
Vanessa stepped into it.
The hug was awkward because Daniel was still holding the other side of Lily.
Margaret stood nearby, crying much more dramatically than anyone else.
Vanessa looked over Lily’s head at Daniel.
He nodded once.
Afterward they went for burgers.
Lily ordered a chocolate shake even though Daniel reminded her she had claimed chocolate shakes were “too much” only a month earlier.
“People change,” she said.
Vanessa covered a laugh with her napkin.
Margaret said, “Apparently.”
There was no declaration that the family was healed.
No agreement that the past was finished.
Vanessa still lived with Margaret.
Daniel still handled school pickups with a patchwork system that sometimes collapsed.
His promotion did not happen that spring.
Mark called him into the office in March and told him another partner had received the Easton role.
Daniel nodded.
Then he went outside, sat in his car, and swore for almost five straight minutes.
He was angry.
Not nobly disappointed.
Angry.
He thought of the money.
The title.
The years he had invested.
He thought, briefly and unfairly, of Vanessa.
If she had not done what she did, maybe nothing would have changed.
Then he hated himself for thinking it.
That evening he arrived home quiet.
Lily noticed.
“Work?”
“Yeah.”
“Bad?”
“Kind of.”
She sat beside him on the sofa.
The trophy was now on a shelf above the console table beside Emily’s Christmas photograph.
The repaired ribbon curved around it.
Lily followed his eyes.
“Did your boss get mad?”
“No.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah.”
“At me?”
Daniel looked at her.
“No.”
She accepted it more easily now.
That was new.
He leaned back.
“I didn’t get something I wanted.”
“A promotion?”
He stared.
“How do you know that word?”
“Madison’s mom got one and bought a hot tub.”
Daniel laughed.
“I did not get a hot-tub-level promotion.”
“That’s bad.”
“Devastating.”
Lily tucked her feet beneath herself.
“Are you sorry you picked me up?”
May you like
The question was light.
Almost casual.
