“Sarah couldn’t handle finding out like this.”
I looked at my mother-in-law.
“And yet you’ve been secretly bringing her daughter here.”
“I was trying to prepare things.”
“By making Lily lie down in a car?”
“I didn’t want the staff asking questions.”
“And by telling her Sarah would be hurt if she talked?”
Evelyn clenched her jaw.
“You don’t understand our family.”
“I understand that a seven-year-old thought she could hurt her mother by telling the truth.”
Thomas took a step toward us.
“I only wanted to meet my granddaughter.”
I turned to him.
“Then you should have started with your daughter.”
He said nothing.
Evelyn tried again.
“If you tell Sarah now, you could destroy everything she’s rebuilt.”
“Then she’ll hear it from me.”
“You’ll destroy your own family just to prove you’re right.”
I took Lily’s hand.
“Lily is coming home with me. Now.”
This time, no one stopped her.
In the car, I asked only one question.
“Has he ever asked you to do anything you didn’t want to do?”
Lily thought about it.
“No. He gives me hot chocolate. He shows me pictures of Mom when she was little.”
“Did he tell you who he was?”
She nodded.
“He says he’s Mom’s dad.”
I had to stare at the road for a few seconds before answering.
“Okay.”
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Is Mom going to get hurt?”
I tightened my hands around the steering wheel.
“She might be sad. But you didn’t do that to her.”
At home, I made waffles at eleven in the morning because Lily asked for them and because I wanted to give her something normal back.
Sarah came home a little after three.
Evelyn had already called her.
I knew it the moment Sarah walked into the kitchen.
Her face was tight.
“My mother says you followed her, barged into a private place, and dragged Lily away in the middle of some kind of scene.”
I didn’t answer immediately.
Lily, sitting at the counter with her crayons, shrank into herself.
Sarah noticed.
All her anger changed direction.
She crouched beside our daughter.
“Lily?”
Lily looked at me.
I said only:
“You can tell her whatever you want to tell her.”
Lily played with the cap of her marker.
“Grandma takes me to see someone when Dad goes away.”
Sarah went pale.
“Who?”
