The balance made me want to vomit.
I could see Lily's signature.
Where did that money come from?
The picture was worse. It was Lily sitting in front of a table, in front of an older man in a gray suit. A briefcase was open between them. She leaned forward, serious, listening to what he said. It seemed that the photo was made through a window.
The note was handwritten.
“She is preparing to officially end the relationship soon. You should know by now.”
My head started to turn.
The picture was worse.
“That could be someone playing a joke on us,” I said out loud.
The photo could have been mounted. In the emergency room, he had seen enough recreation to recognize a frame when he was so carefully riding on a bed. I forced myself to breathe. Whoever did it wanted a reaction, and the smart thing would have been to stop.
Then, against my will, my mind swerved into the briefcase that had been on the kitchen table for the last month. The one my daughter hid as soon as I walked in. The suspersed calls. The extra shifts in the cafeteria, he said, were just to “spend money.”
Who wrote this wanted a reaction.
Every weird little thing of the last year has fit in, and every little scandal has hurt.
“How could Lily do this to me?”
I grabbed the edge of the comfortable to stay on my feet.
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.
