Chapter 3
The police took Michael away in handcuffs.
I stood at the window and watched them put him in the back of the cruiser. He didn’t look back.
Olivia was still in the kitchen, leaning against the counter, her face ashen. She kept twisting the stolen engagement ring around her finger, over and over, like she was trying to rub it off.
Dad was on the phone with the detective, going through the evidence stack by stack. His voice was low and steady, the same voice he’d used to read me bedtime stories, to teach me to ride a bike, to tell me everything would be okay.
I’d thought that voice was gone from my life forever.
I walked to the table and started gathering the photographs. I didn’t look at them. I just stacked them as fast as I could, my hands moving automatically, because if I stopped I’d start screaming and I might never stop.
Olivia watched me.
“I didn’t know,” she said again. Her voice was small. Broken. “About the attempts on your life. I swear to God, I didn’t. If I’d had any idea he was capable of that—”
“Would it have mattered?” I asked. I didn’t look up. “Would you have stopped? Or would you have just told yourself I deserved it for being ‘tired’ and ‘complaining about money’?”
She flinched like I’d hit her.
Fair.
“I was jealous,” she whispered. “Okay? I was always jealous. You got the good grades. You got the parents’ attention. You got the big wedding and the house and the baby. And then… then he started paying attention to me. Telling me I was prettier. Smarter. That I deserved better than the life I had. And I was stupid enough to believe him.”
I finally looked at her.
My own sister. The girl I’d shared a room with for sixteen years. The one who’d held my hair back when I had morning sickness with Lily. The one who’d been my maid of honor.
Seven years of betrayal. Since the night Lily was born.
“Get out,” I said.
Her eyes filled with tears.
“Please. Let me fix this. Let me help—”
“Get out of my house.” My voice was ice. “Before I call the police back and tell them you were his accomplice. Because you were. You helped him. You gave him information. You wore my things and slept in my bed and told my daughter you’d be her new mother. That makes you every bit as guilty as he is in my book.”
She stood there for a long moment, crying silently. Then she slowly pulled the necklace from her neck and set it on the table. She slid the diamond ring off next to it. The designer tote she’d been carrying—my tote—she set that down too.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
She walked out.
I heard her car start and pull away.
The house was quiet. Too quiet. The pancakes on the stove had gone cold, congealing into a blue-gray mess. The glitter card Lily had made was still tucked under Michael’s napkin, untouched.
Dad hung up the phone and came to stand beside me.
He didn’t say anything. He just put his arm around my shoulders.
I leaned into him.
And then I broke.
I cried harder than I’d ever cried in my life. I cried for the ten years I’d lost. For the husband who’d never existed. For the sister who’d betrayed me. For my little girl who’d heard every terrible word, who’d watched her father get dragged away in handcuffs. I cried until my throat was raw and my eyes burned and there was nothing left inside me but an empty, aching hole.
Dad held me through all of it. He didn’t tell me it would be okay. He didn’t say everything happened for a reason. He just held me and let me fall apart.
When I finally had nothing left, he pulled back and wiped my face with his sleeve, just like he did when I was small.
“Lily,” I whispered. “Oh God, Lily. She heard everything. She saw—”
“I know,” Dad said. “We’ll handle it. Together. But first—” He glanced at the stairs. “We need to get you both out of this house. Tonight. You can’t stay here another night. Not after everything that happened in these walls.”
He was right. I looked around the kitchen and saw only ghosts. Michael’s lies around every corner. Olivia’s laughter in the next room. The ghost of the girl I’d been ten years ago, so bright and hopeful and stupidly in love.
“Where will we go?”
“To my house,” he said like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “I have plenty of room. The guest room’s already made up. I… I’ve kept it ready, just in case. For eight years.”
My throat tightened again.
All those years I’d hated him. All those birthdays and holidays I’d spent telling myself he didn’t care, that he’d abandoned me. And he’d been waiting. Watching. Keeping a light on for me, just in case.
“Okay,” I said.
We went upstairs to get Lily.
Her door was closed. I knocked softly.
“Baby? It’s Mommy. Can I come in?”
No answer.
I pushed the door open.
She was sitting on her bed, her back to me, her knees pulled to her chest. Her unicorn headphones were on, but they were around her neck, not over her ears. She’d heard everything.
I sat beside her and wrapped my arms around her. She stiffened at first, then melted into me, her small body shaking.
“Is Daddy in jail?” she whispered.
“Yes, baby.”
“Is he coming back?”
I kissed the top of her head. I wanted to lie. I wanted to tell her no, that he was gone forever, that we’d never have to be afraid again. But I didn’t know that for sure. And I’d had enough lies to last a lifetime.
“Not for a very long time,” I said. “And if he ever does, Grandpa and I will make sure he never hurts us. Ever again.”
She was quiet for a long time.
“Did Auntie Olivia really want to be my new mommy?”
The question was like a knife to the heart.
I held her tighter.
“Auntie Olivia made a lot of very bad choices,” I said carefully. “She was wrong. And she’s very sorry. But you only have one mommy. And that’s me. And nothing and no one will ever change that.”
Lily turned and looked at me. Her eyes were so big, so old for seven years old.
“I love you, Mommy,” she said. “Even if Daddy doesn’t.”
I cried again then, right there on her bed, holding my daughter, while my dad stood in the doorway watching, his own eyes glistening.
We packed two suitcases each. We didn’t take much. Just clothes. Lily’s favorite stuffed animals. The few things that didn’t feel tainted.
I left the wedding photos on the wall. I left the furniture. I left the life I’d built with a man who’d never existed.
As we walked out the front door, Dad locked it behind us.
“One more thing,” he said, pausing on the porch. He pulled a set of keys from his pocket and held them out to me. “I had the locks changed on your mother’s old cottage last week. The one by the lake. It’s yours. Free and clear. If you ever want your own space, it’s there. Whenever you’re ready.”
I stared at the keys.
My mother’s cottage. The place I’d spent every summer as a kid. The place I’d thought was sold years ago, when Dad “disowned” me.
“You kept it?”
“I kept everything,” he said softly. “I never stopped being your father. Not for one day.”
I took the keys.
We got in Dad’s truck. Lily fell asleep in the back seat before we even left the neighborhood, her head lolled against her window.
I looked back at the house one last time.
The house where I’d been happy. Where I’d been betrayed. Where I’d almost died, three times, without ever knowing.
I didn’t feel sad anymore.
I felt something else.
May you like
Something strong.
We pulled away, and I didn’t look back again.
