Chương 4
Lily climbed off the stool.
She picked up the trophy.
At the hallway she stopped.
“Can I keep this in my room?”
“Of course.”
She hesitated.
“Even if it looks messy?”
Daniel understood.
“Yes.”
She disappeared down the hall.
Daniel remained at the island until the shower came on.
Then he took out his phone.
There were already seven messages.
Three from Vanessa.
One from Margaret.
One from his younger cousin Rebecca.
Two from numbers in a family group text he rarely opened.
Vanessa’s first message read:
You humiliated me in front of Lily.
The second:
I have done more for that child in two years than you seem capable of remembering right now.
The third arrived as he watched.
When you calm down, we can discuss this like adults.
Daniel read it twice.
Then he put the phone facedown.
It vibrated almost immediately.
He did not touch it.
Instead he went upstairs to the linen closet.
The Christmas photograph was behind a stack of old towels.
The beach photograph was beneath a spare pillowcase.
Daniel stood there holding both frames.
Emily smiled at him from another life.
He had forgotten the Christmas picture was slightly crooked inside the frame. She had promised to fix it. Then treatment started again, and they stopped caring about crooked photographs.
Daniel sat on the hallway floor.
He did not cry.
He wished he could.
Crying had come easily in the first year, unexpectedly and without dignity. In grocery-store aisles. In the car outside work. Once during a presentation when he noticed a woman in the second row wearing the same perfume Emily had worn.
Then grief changed.
It became administrative.
School forms with one parent’s name.
Emergency contact updates.
Health insurance paperwork.
Deleting Emily’s old email from online accounts.
Deciding whether to keep paying for a phone number nobody would answer.
Somewhere during that transformation, Vanessa had become useful.
Daniel had allowed useful to become trusted.
He looked at the Christmas photograph again.
Lily had flour in her hair.
Emily’s mouth was open in laughter.
Daniel had taken the picture.
He remembered almost dropping the phone because Emily had reached toward him with sugar-covered fingers.
The shower turned off.
Daniel stood and carried both photographs downstairs.
He put them back on the console table.
Not where they had been.
He could not remember where.
That bothered him more than it should have.
Lily came downstairs wearing pajama pants and one of his old college T-shirts, the sleeves reaching her elbows.
She stopped when she saw the photographs.
Daniel pretended to adjust one.
“Too crooked?”
Lily walked closer.
“That one goes there.”
She pointed.
Daniel moved it six inches.
“And the beach one was next to Grandma and Grandpa.”
He moved that too.
Lily studied the arrangement.
“Yeah.”
“Better?”
She nodded.
Then she touched the edge of the Christmas frame.
“Aunt Vanessa said you asked her to put these away.”
Daniel felt something twist beneath his ribs.
“I didn’t.”
Lily looked up.
“She said you got sad.”
“I do get sad.”
“Oh.”
“But I didn’t ask her to hide them.”
Lily’s fingers left the frame.
Daniel wished there were a way to explain the difference between being sad and wanting something gone.
He settled for, “I like seeing Mom.”
Lily stared at Emily’s face.
“Even when it hurts?”
“Especially then sometimes.”
She considered that.
“I thought you didn’t.”
Daniel sat on the edge of the console table.
“Why?”
“You don’t talk about her much.”
The answer was simple because it was true.
“I was scared I’d make you sad.”
Lily frowned.
“I’m already sad.”
Daniel shut his eyes for one second.
When he opened them, Lily was still looking at him.
“Yeah,” he said. “That was pretty dumb.”
She gave a tiny nod.
“Kind of.”
He laughed once.
So did she.
It was the first real sound of relief in the house all afternoon.
Sunday morning brought pancakes, two voicemails from Vanessa, and a problem Daniel had managed not to think about until his work calendar reminded him.
Monday afternoon.
Client review at three.
Lily’s school ended at 2:45.
Vanessa normally picked her up.
Tuesday was worse. Gymnastics practice until six, but Daniel had a quarterly executive meeting scheduled across town.
Wednesday he was supposed to be in Chicago overnight.
He stared at the calendar while pancake batter burned in the skillet.
Lily sniffed.
“Dad.”
“I know.”
“Smoke.”
“I know.”
“The alarm’s going to—”
The smoke detector screamed.
Daniel swore.
Lily laughed.
He opened a window and waved a dish towel beneath the alarm.
By the time the noise stopped, the pancake resembled roofing material.
Lily poked it with her fork.
“Can I tell people you made this?”
“No.”
“Can I take a picture?”
“Absolutely not.”
She took one anyway.
Daniel made another batch on lower heat.
His phone rang.
Margaret.
He answered.
“Morning.”
Her voice sounded tired. “Did I wake you?”
“I’ve been awake since six.”
“Lily?”
“Taking evidence photos of my breakfast.”
A pause.
“I wanted to check on her.”
“She’s okay.”
Daniel looked across the kitchen.
Lily was decorating a pancake with blueberries in a pattern that made sense only to her.
“No,” he corrected. “She’s not okay. But she’s eating.”
Margaret sighed.
“Vanessa barely slept.”
Daniel said nothing.
“She’s upset.”
“Mom.”
“I’m not asking you to forgive anything.”
“Good.”
“I just—she feels like everything she’s done has been erased because of one terrible moment.”
Daniel looked at the repaired trophy on the bookshelf.
“It wasn’t one moment.”
Margaret went quiet.
“You knew that before I did.”
“I knew she was strict.”
“You knew she hid pictures of Emily.”
“I found out after.”
“You didn’t tell me.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Margaret hesitated.
Daniel waited.
“She said you were finally doing better.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“And you believed that?”
“I wanted to.”
There it was.
Not malice.
Convenience.
Daniel understood convenience too well to despise it cleanly.
Margaret said, “She said Lily was dwelling.”
“She’s eight.”
“I know.”
May you like
“Her mother died.”
“I know.”
