Chapter 9
Arthur came to my school play with Ruth, Mrs. Carter, and Lily.
I had one line. Lily shouted it with me from the audience. Everyone around her laughed, and I nearly forgot the next part.
Afterward, Arthur gave me a paper bag from the bakery. Inside was a roll shaped like a crooked star.
“Ruth says I made it,” he told me. “She says you’ll know she helped.”
“I do.”
He looked pleased.
I had begun to know what our mornings would be like. Lily woke early and talked through breakfast. Arthur checked the weather before deciding whether we needed coats. He let me take apart a broken radio at the kitchen table as long as I put the pieces in a tray.
Sometimes I still woke thinking Dad was in the next room.
Those mornings hurt. Arthur never asked me to stop talking about him. He asked what Dad might have made for breakfast or whether he had a favorite song.
I told him what I could.
The formal decisions about where Lily and I would live took longer than I wanted. Ms. Lewis kept visiting. She spoke with us at school, at Arthur’s house, and once at Ruth’s bakery.
Arthur answered every question. He did not act as if being Dad’s father meant he could skip any step.
When Ms. Lewis told us the longer arrangement had been approved, Lily hugged her around the waist. I stood very still until I heard the words again.
“We can stay together?”
“Yes,” she said.
“And Mrs. Carter can come?”
“She’s welcome to visit you, just as she has been.”
I went upstairs and sat on my bed. It was in Claire’s old sewing room. Arthur had cleared shelves for my books and left the machine in a corner because Lily loved watching him fix things with it.
Arthur knocked.
“May I come in?”
“Yes.”
He sat in the chair by the window.
“I know you might have mixed feelings,” he said. “We can talk about any of them.”
“I’m happy.”
“That sounds like one.”
“I feel bad for being happy.”
“Because you miss Daniel?”
I nodded.
Arthur looked at the framed picture on my shelf.
“Your father wanted you and Lily cared for. You don’t have to stay frightened to show you love him.”
I wiped my eyes.
“I wish he were here.”
“So do I.”
We sat together until Lily came looking for us.
Ms. Brooks called a few days later. Vanessa had returned the remaining money owed to Lily and me under the arrangement reached for Dad’s payment. The records were corrected, and she would not be allowed to manage funds for us.
Arthur put the documents away where Ms. Lewis and Ms. Brooks said they should be kept. He explained the amount to me and how it would be held for our needs.
“Dad would have bought Lily a new coat first,” I said.
“We can do that. We don’t have to use his money for it.”
I thought about Dad counting bills at our kitchen table. Arthur was offering help he had not given when Dad needed it. I knew he felt that too.
“Let me choose the color,” I said.
The old bakery matter ended differently. Vanessa would not give us a reason for hiding the corrected deposit. Arthur’s written account, the bank records, and Dad’s letter were preserved together. The truth was there for Lily when she became old enough to ask.
I still wanted Vanessa to say she was sorry to Dad.
Mrs. Carter told me some people would rather pay money than admit what they had done. She said that did not make the truth any less true.
At the cemetery, Arthur placed a copy of his written statement in his coat pocket.
“I’m not leaving paper in the rain,” he said when he saw me watching. “I just wanted to bring the words here.”
I put a stone beside Dad’s name.
“Tell him,” I said.
Arthur took a breath.
“Daniel, I was wrong. I should have trusted you. Thank you for trusting me with your children anyway.”
Lily slipped her hand into mine.
On the way home, she asked if Dad knew where we lived now.
“I think he hoped we’d get here,” I told her.
“Arthur’s house?”
“Our house.”
She smiled at the change.
May you like
That night, I put the original photograph back in its sleeve. It had led us to a man who was trying every day to deserve the address Dad had written on its back.
I no longer needed to carry it in my pocket. I set it beside my bed, where I could see it each morning.
