Chapter 9
The divorce hearing was scheduled for the Thursday before our trip.
I asked Mom to pick Lily up from school so the day would stay as ordinary as possible for her. She knew where I was going. She had asked whether Sarah and I would be married when I came home.
“No,” I told her. “The judge will make the divorce final.”
Lily took that in.
“Will it change where I live?”
“No.”
“Will I still see Ben?”
“Yes. We’ve already made plans for next month.”
She nodded and went back to eating breakfast. I sat with her until she finished.
At the courthouse, Sarah waited with her attorney. I recognized the nervous way she twisted her wedding ring. I had once reached for her hand whenever she did that.
We stood before the judge and confirmed the agreement. The house had been sold. Lily’s money had been repaid. Our finances had been divided. The divorce was granted.
It took less time than I expected.
Outside, Sarah asked to speak with me. Naomi stayed nearby.
“Ben wants to come to the beach with you,” Sarah said.
I had known he wanted to go. He had asked Lily about it the previous weekend, then told her he knew this trip was hers and mine.
“I’d like to take him another time,” I said. “Lily and I planned this one together.”
Sarah nodded. “I told him it was up to you.”
“He understands,” I said. “We talked.”
She looked past me toward the courthouse doors. “I’m glad they’re still close.”
“So am I.”
“I’ve started seeing someone to talk through what I did,” she said. “Ben knows. I want to do better by him.”
I hoped she would. Ben needed a mother who could hear him without making him carry her guilt.
Sarah took off her ring and placed it in her purse.
“I’m sorry for what I did to Lily,” she said. “And for making you find out in front of her.”
I thanked her for saying it. I did not have more to give.
When I reached Mom’s house, Lily was at the table doing homework. She looked up as I came in.
“It’s done?” she asked.
“Yes.”
She put down her pencil and came over. I hugged her.
“Are you okay, Dad?”
“I’m sad about some parts of it,” I said. “I’m okay.”
“Me too.”
We stayed with Mom for dinner. Ben called to wish Lily a good trip. He had made a list of things for her to photograph: a crab, a kite, and Dad making a ridiculous face.
She read the last item aloud and laughed.
“I can promise that one,” I called toward the phone.
The night before we left, Lily checked our booking again. She found both names, the address of the hotel, and the dates.
“You’re very thorough,” I told her.
“I learned from you.”
I wished she had learned it under gentler circumstances. I sat beside her and went through the plan once more: we would drive after breakfast, stop for lunch, and call Mom when we arrived.
“I believe you,” Lily said.
I looked at her. “You can still check.”
“I know. I want to.”
We left in the morning with the pink suitcase in the trunk and Lily’s camera on her lap.
Halfway there, Sarah sent me a message wishing Lily a good trip. I read it at a rest stop and asked Lily if she wanted to hear it. She said yes.
“That’s nice,” she replied, then asked whether we had time for ice cream.
We arrived at the coast in late afternoon. Lily stepped out of the car and stood still.
“I can smell it,” she said.
“The ocean?”
She nodded and ran ahead of me toward the path over the dunes.
I caught up at the top. The water spread out below us, bright under the evening sky. Lily raised her camera, lowered it, then simply watched.
“I’m really here,” she said.
“You are.”
She took a picture at last. Then she turned the camera toward me.
“Make the face for Ben.”
I did. She laughed and took three photographs.
We walked down to the shore with our shoes in our hands. Lily let a wave wash over her feet and squealed at the cold. I stayed beside her while she tried again.
At dinner, she talked so quickly about what she wanted to do tomorrow that she forgot to eat half her food. There was a pier, a lighthouse, and a little shop with postcards in the window.
Back in our room, I called Mom. Lily showed her the view from the window. Then she called Ben and told him she had already taken his picture.
After the calls, she set her camera on the bedside table.
“Dad?”
“Yes?”
“I was afraid something would happen before we got here.”
“I know.”
She pulled back the blanket and climbed into bed. “I’m glad we came.”
“So am I.”
I turned off the lamp. For a while, I listened to the waves through the open window and Lily settling into sleep.
Then she spoke again, very softly.
“Tomorrow, can we go to the lighthouse first?”
“We can.”
May you like
“Promise?”
“I promise.”
