He laughed once, short and sharp. “You hear yourself, right now?”
I wanted to push harder. I should have.
But Lily was upstairs, and I didn’t want another screaming match where she could hear every word.
Then came the night that broke whatever denial I still had.
“What are you not telling me?”
I woke up sometime after midnight because I heard something from Lily’s room.
I went down the hall and pushed her door open.
She was curled up on her bed, knees to her chest, breathing in short little pulls. Her face looked gray.
“Lily?” I rushed to her. “What’s wrong?”
She looked at me with glassy eyes. “Mom. I can’t keep hiding this from you anymore.”
Every nerve in my body went tight. “Hiding what?”
“What’s wrong?”
“Mark and I…” She looked away. “Tomorrow… I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.”
“No. Tell me now.”
She shook her head weakly.
I sat with her for almost an hour, rubbing her back while she drifted in and out of sleep, terrified and angry.
Every worst-case scenario I could think of was running through my head. I hated myself for every moment I had second-guessed my own instincts.
“Tomorrow… I’ll tell you everything tomorrow.”
