CHAPTER 7
Michael met Lily the next morning.
I was terrified it was too soon.
Dr. Brooks said it should be Lily’s choice.
So I told her simply, “Michael is visiting. He’s Victoria’s brother. He knows what it feels like when someone scares you.”
Lily considered this.
“Is he scary?”
“No.”
“Is he loud?”
“Not usually.”
“Does he like pancakes?”
“I don’t know.”
That decided it.
She came downstairs.
Michael was standing near the kitchen doorway.
He refused to enter the kitchen.
I understood why.
Lily stopped several feet away.
Michael crouched.
He did not move toward her.
“Hi, Lily.”
“Hi.”
“I heard you draw good umbrellas.”
She looked surprised.
“You saw it?”
“Your dad told me.”
She studied his hands.
Children notice everything.
“What happened?”
Michael followed her eyes.
He could have lied.
He didn’t.
“Somebody hurt them when I was little.”
Lily looked at me.
Then back at him.
“Victoria?”
The room became painfully still.
Michael nodded.
“Yes.”
Lily walked closer.
“How old?”
“Ten.”
“I’m four.”
“I know.”
“That’s little too.”
Michael swallowed.
“Yes.”
Then Lily did something none of us expected.
She held out her hand.
Michael stared at it.
Then carefully placed his scarred hand beneath hers.
Lily compared them.
“Mine are getting better.”
“I can see that.”
“Yours too?”
“A long time ago.”
She nodded.
Then she asked, “Do you want pancakes?”
Michael laughed.
It was probably the first genuine laugh he had given in days.
“I’d love pancakes.”
We ate in the dining room.
Not the kitchen.
Afterward, Emma took Lily upstairs.
Michael and I returned to my office.
He placed an old notebook on my desk.
“My journal.”
I hesitated.
“You don’t have to show me.”
“I know.”
He opened it.
The entries began when he was nine.
Most were simple.
School.
Baseball.
A girl named Jenna.
Then Victoria began appearing.
V mad because I used her shampoo.
V said I ruined her shirt.
V locked Charlie outside.
Then darker.
V made me hold the pan.
V said Mom will believe her.
V put my hands in water.
I stopped reading.
“This is enough.”
“No.”
Michael turned another page.
“She escalates.”
I looked at him.
“What do you mean?”
“When punishment stops making the person afraid enough, she invents something worse.”
My chest tightened.
Michael continued.
“At first she yelled at me. Then she took things. Then she locked me places.”
“Like Lily.”
“Yes.”
“Then the water.”
“Yes.”
“What came after?”
He stared at the journal.
“She pushed me down the stairs.”
I felt sick.
“Did your mother know?”
“She accepted the story that I fell.”
“Of course.”
“Then there was Charlie.”
I remembered Evelyn’s silence.
“What happened?”
Michael’s jaw tightened.
“She told me if I ever talked again, Charlie would pay.”
“And he did?”
“He disappeared.”
My throat tightened.
“We never found him.”
I could see that ten-year-old boy inside the man sitting across from me.
“Michael.”
He closed the notebook.
“That’s why I left.”
“At eighteen?”
“Seventeen.”
“How?”
“Teacher helped me.”
“Your mother?”
“Reported me missing.”
“Victoria?”
“Sent messages telling me to come home.”
He laughed without humor.
“She said Mom was sick because of me.”
I thought about every message Victoria had sent since her arrest.
Same tactic.
Guilt.
Blame.
Fear.
“What do you think she’ll do now?”
“She’ll look for the weakest person.”
“Lily is protected.”
“Then Rosa.”
“Security.”
“Your sister?”
“Emma has security too.”
Michael looked at me.
“Your company?”
I stared at him.
He was right.
Two hours later my chief financial officer called.
A story had been sent anonymously to three newspapers accusing my company of hiding financial misconduct.
Fake documents were attached.
Rachel traced the language to a former consultant connected to Victoria’s reputation-management firm.
She was attacking everything.
My credibility.
My money.
My stability.
Because if she could make me look corrupt, she could weaken me in family court.
My board called an emergency meeting.
I joined by video.
For three hours I answered questions while Lily played downstairs.
At one point my chairman asked whether I should temporarily step aside.
A year earlier, that suggestion would have terrified me.
My company was my identity.
I built it from nothing.
But I looked toward the hallway where Lily’s laughter drifted from downstairs.
“My daughter needs me,” I said.
The board went quiet.
“If you believe someone else should handle operations while this investigation continues, appoint them.”
My chairman stared.
“You’re willing to step back?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“As long as necessary.”
After the meeting, Michael was standing outside my office.
“You meant that?”
“Yes.”
“You built that company.”
“I know.”
“And you’ll walk away?”
“I didn’t say walk away.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I spent years treating every business emergency like it deserved more of me than my own home.”
Michael studied me.
“You didn’t know.”
“No.”
“But?”
“But Lily knew I wasn’t there.”
That evening I tucked Lily into bed.
She held Rabbit beneath her chin.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Are you going on airplane tomorrow?”
“No.”
“Next tomorrow?”
“No.”
“The tomorrow after?”
I smiled sadly.
“No.”
She thought about it.
“How many tomorrows?”
“As many as you need.”
Her eyes filled.
“You promise?”
I wanted to say forever.
But therapy had taught me not to promise what no human could guarantee.
So I gave her something real.
“If I ever have to leave, you’ll know where I’m going, who you’re staying with, and when I’m coming back. And I will call you every night.”
Lily nodded.
“That’s a good promise.”
“It is.”
She closed her eyes.
Then opened them again.
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Michael is sad.”
“I think he is.”
“Because nobody believed him?”
My throat tightened.
“Yes.”
She hugged Rabbit.
“I believe him.”
The next morning Michael found a folded paper outside his bedroom.
Lily had drawn another umbrella.
This time two children stood beneath it.
One small.
One taller.
Above them she had written, with Emma’s help:
WE BELIEVE EACH OTHER.
May you like
Michael sat on the edge of his bed holding the picture.
And for the first time since meeting him, I watched him cry.
