Lily cried almost every night for a mother I couldn’t bring back.
I paced the hallway at 3 a.m. with a toddler on my shoulder and a shift starting at 6 a.m.
I worked long hours, with family assisting with babysitting.
But slowly, quietly, things got better, and she became the reason I came home.
She became my entire world.
***
Fifteen years passed like a single held breath.
Now I was standing on a step stool in the dining room, hanging streamers while a barbecue smoked on the back patio. Lily was turning 18.
“Dad, those are crooked.”
“They’re artistic,” I said.
“They’re crooked.”
She grinned at me from the doorway, phone in one hand, and I felt something warm and steady behind my ribs. My kid. My whole world.
“Dad, those are crooked.”
I climbed down and squeezed her shoulder. “You happy?”
“Very.” My daughter glanced at her phone, and her smile flickered for a second. “I’ll be right back.”
Lily stepped into the hallway and lowered her voice. I caught fragments.
“How did you get my number? Stop calling me!”
I told myself it was nothing. Teenagers had their whole hidden lives now, and I’d promised myself years ago I’d give her the privacy I never got as a kid.
“I’ll be right back.”
Still, it was the third hushed call this month.
Earlier that week, I’d walked into the kitchen, and she’d slid a manila folder off the table and into her backpack in one smooth motion, as if she’d practiced it.
When I asked, she just said, “School stuff.”
I let it go. I always let it go.
She’d slid a manila folder off the table.
Mark had noticed I looked wrung out at work lately.
I’d told him, over coffee in my kitchen once, that I was burning out. That I didn’t know how much longer I could keep cutting people open at 2 a.m.
Lily had been in her bedroom that afternoon, close enough to hear.
I hadn’t thought about it since.
I looked wrung out at work.
***
Lily was in the middle of a circle of her friends that we’d invited over, laughing at something Rachel had said, her hair catching the late afternoon light. I stood by the grill flipping burgers, and for a second, I just watched her.
My kid was growing up fast.
