Chapter 9: Lily Knows
Three weeks later, on a Saturday morning in December, Nora sat across from Lily at the kitchen table and told her the truth.
Not all of it.
Not the parts that belonged to courts and investigations and a woman named Renata Voss in Phoenix.
But the parts that belonged to Lily.
She told her that her mama — the mama in the video, the one who had taught her the bluebird turn — had loved her father very much.
She told her that her father had not known about her, and that finding out had made him very happy and a little sad at the same time, the way important things sometimes made you feel two things at once.
Lily listened with the focused attention she gave to everything that mattered to her.
"Is he sad because my mama is g0ne?" she asked.
"Yes," Nora said.
"But he's also happy because of you."
Lily thought about this.
"Can you be both at the same time?"
"Yes.
Grown-ups are like that sometimes."
"That seems hard."
"It is.
But it gets easier."
Lily picked up the stuffed rabbit.
"Does he know about the rabbit?"
"He knows about the rabbit."
"Does he know the rabbit's name?"
Nora paused.
"What is the rabbit's name?"
Lily looked at her as though this were a very obvious question.
"His name is Bluebird."
Nora's throat tightened.
She kept her voice even.
"I don't think he knows that yet.
You could tell him."
Julian came in from the garden at ten o'clock, carrying a tray with three cups — coffee for himself, tea for Nora, and hot chocolate for Lily, which he had learned she required on cold mornings.
He had been learning things like this for three weeks.
He was still learning.
He set the tray on the table and sat down.
Lily looked at him very seriously.
"My rabbit's name is Bluebird."
Julian set his coffee cup down carefully.
"That's a good name."
"My mama named him.
She liked bluebirds."
"I know," Julian said.
"She showed me once."
Lily's eyes went wide.
"You knew my mama?"
"Yes.
A long time ago.
Before you were born."
The child absorbed this with the grave deliberateness of someone filing important information in the correct place.
Then she held out the rabbit.
"You can hold him if you want," she said.
"He likes people who knew her."
Julian took the rabbit.
He held it carefully, the way Lily always held it — not loosely, but with intention, as though the thing inside it mattered.
"Thank you," he said.
"You're welcome." Lily picked up her hot chocolate.
"Nora says you're my father."
"Yes."
"Do you know how to make pancakes?"
Julian looked at Nora.
Nora looked at the ceiling.
"I can learn," he said.
Lily nodded, satisfied.
"Okay.
We have pancakes on Sundays.
You can come."
It was not a dramatic moment.
There was no music, no grand declaration.
A four-year-old in a kitchen, offering a man a standing invitation to Sunday breakfast, as though the most natural thing in the world was simply to make room for one more person at the table.
May you like
Julian said, "I'll be here."
And he was.
