Chapter 8 - WHAT LILY THOUGHT SHE KNEW
The next morning, Lily wouldn’t eat pancakes.
Kate set the plate down gently.
“You usually like these.”
Lily traced the edge with one finger.
“Are they mine?”
“Yes.”
“All of them?”
Kate looked across the table at Daniel.
He put down his coffee.
“Why wouldn’t they be?”
Lily shrugged.
Nobody pushed.
After breakfast, Kate gave her paper and crayons at the other end of the kitchen.
Daniel sat nearby.
For ten minutes, they listened to the refrigerator hum.
Then Lily said, “Mommy got sick after I was born.”
Daniel kept his voice steady.
“Yes. But much later.”
“Vanessa said it made her tired.”
“What did?”
“Having me.”
He looked at Kate.
She shook her head slightly: let Lily finish.
Lily pressed a blue crayon hard against the paper.
“She said if I keep making people tired, they leave.”
Daniel pulled out the chair beside her.
“Can I sit?”
She nodded.
“Your mom got sick because something in her body stopped working right. Nothing you said or did caused that.”
“Even when I cried?”
“Even then.”
“Even when I made her get up at night?”
He swallowed.
“Your mom loved getting up with you.”
That wasn’t entirely true. Emily had been exhausted, sometimes irritated, sometimes so tired she cried.
He corrected himself.
“Sometimes she was tired. Being tired didn’t mean she wished you weren’t there.”
Lily stared at the drawing.
“Did she tell you that?”
“Yes.”
“What did she say?”
Daniel remembered Emily on the couch, Lily asleep on her chest.
“She said, ‘Come look at this face. How did we get this lucky?’”
Lily’s crayon stopped.
For the first time since the patio, her shoulders dropped.
Then Daniel’s phone buzzed.
His lawyer, Evelyn Park.
He stepped into the hall.
“Vanessa’s retained counsel,” Evelyn said. “There’s something you need to know before you hear it from anyone else.”
“What?”
“She’s claiming the household was unsafe for her.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Of course she is.”
“And she’s circulating a video.”
His grip tightened.
“What video?”
“The pool incident.”
Daniel looked back at Lily, bent over her drawing.
May you like
“I thought the camera was off.”
“So did I,” Evelyn said.
