Chapter 9
We celebrated Lily’s seventh birthday in the backyard.
Her first birthday with me.
Her first birthday without Victor watching.
Anna hung paper lanterns from the maple tree.
Grace baked a lopsided cake that leaned slightly to the left.
Lily declared it perfect because “straight cakes are boring.”
I bought too many gifts.
Anna gave me a look.
I ignored it.
I had seven years to make up for, and even though therapy told me love was not measured in presents, I still bought the bicycle.
Pink.
With a white basket.
Lily stared at it like it was a unicorn.
“Is it mine?”
“Yes.”
“For always?”
“For always.”
She touched the handlebars.
“Grandpa said expensive things belong to the person who pays.”
Anna’s smile faded.
I crouched beside the bike.
“This belongs to you because it was given to you with love. Gifts do not become chains.”
Lily looked at Anna.
“Is that true?”
Anna nodded.
“Yes.”
Lily climbed onto the bike.
She wobbled.
I held the seat.
“Ready?”
“No.”
“Okay.”
She looked over her shoulder.
“Don’t let go until I say.”
“I won’t.”
We moved slowly down the driveway.
Her little legs pumped.
Anna clapped.
Grace shouted directions that made no sense.
Lily laughed.
“Don’t let go!”
“I’m here.”
Again and again, we practiced.
By evening, she rode three feet alone and acted like she had crossed the country.
That night, after everyone left, Anna and I washed dishes together.
The house was quiet except for Lily singing to herself upstairs.
Anna handed me a plate.
“I’m scared.”
“Of what?”
“That we’ll try too hard to become what we were.”
I set the plate down.
I understood.
We had been married.
Then widowed.
Then reunited.
But none of those words fit cleanly.
“I don’t want to go backward,” I said.
She looked at me.
“I loved you then.”
“I loved you too.”
“But I’m not that Anna.”
“I’m not that Daniel.”
She nodded slowly.
“So what are we?”
I smiled a little.
“Beginners.”
She laughed softly.
Then she cried.
I held her, and this time there was no panic in the touch.
Just grief moving out of the way.
Weeks became months.
We built routines.
Pancakes on Sundays.
Library on Wednesdays.
Therapy on Thursdays.
Letters on the first of every month.
We wrote them to each other and put them in a blue box Lily decorated with stickers.
Some letters were silly.
Some were serious.
Lily wrote one that said:
Dear Daddy, today you burned toast but I still love you.
I kept it in my wallet.
Anna had hard days.
So did I.
Sometimes she woke from nightmares.
Sometimes I still dreamed of the cemetery.
Sometimes Lily checked the street for black cars.
But then she would say, “That one is blue,” and keep walking.
That was healing.
May you like
Not forgetting.
Knowing the color of the car and walking anyway.
