Fifteen years of school comings and goings, fevers, burnt pancakes and parent and teacher meetings. And that's where it all ended.
A cardboard box on my porch on your eighteenth birthday.
I grabbed the edge of the comfortable.
Somewhere in the hall, I could hear Lily laughing again. A cheerful and relaxed laugh, as I always did with Rachel.
I looked at that picture, the man in the suit, and I felt a chill. A fear that I have carried in silence during all these years and that I have never expressed in words.
One day, I'd find out that I was just the guy who signed the papers.
I closed the box. I still couldn't face her. Not tonight, not all these people in the house.
I felt the helpy skin.
But then, he would get answers, even if the truth destroyed us both.
After the last guest left, I asked Lily to sit with me at the lounge table.
