Chapter 7
I remembered that day.
Lily’s sitter had called while I was at work. She had a fever and could not keep the children. I had asked permission to bring Lily to the house for an hour until my mother could collect her.
Victoria had been in the hallway. She crouched, smiled at Lily, and asked her name.
I had thought her smile was kind.
Nathan watched me remember.
“She knew then,” I said.
“She admitted it.”
“Why let me keep working there?”
Victoria had answered that too. Nathan said she wanted to see whether I would tell him. When I did not, she believed I could be frightened into leaving again.
A week before the attack, she had searched my bag and found the photograph of Nathan at the summer fair. I had kept it tucked in Lily’s picture book.
That morning in the kitchen, Victoria had confronted me. Lily arrived with my mother earlier than planned. My mother had stepped out to park the car, and Lily came in looking for me.
Victoria saw her, lost control, and grabbed the hockey stick Nathan kept near the back door.
I listened until Nathan finished.
“She didn’t strike Lily,” he said, “but she knew Lily was there.”
“I know. I was there.”
His face tightened. “I’m sorry.”
I took a breath. “I need you to stop apologizing for her choices.”
“I’m apologizing for bringing her into our lives.”
“You didn’t know who she was.”
He looked away, unconvinced.
Later, Ramirez told me Victoria’s statement had led police to a storage unit. They recovered copies of letters I had written to Nathan. I recognized my own handwriting through the evidence bag.
One envelope contained a picture I had drawn of the baby at my first scan. I had written, I wish you were here.
Nathan asked permission before opening it.
I said yes.
He read the letter beside me. I could not watch his face the whole time.
“I waited for you,” he said when he finished. “I thought I knew what your silence meant.”
“I waited too.”
It was the closest we had come to speaking about us without the others in the room.
I wanted to ask whether he had loved Victoria. Whether he could love me again. But Lily needed steadiness more than I needed an answer, so I let the questions rest.
The investigation moved forward. Victoria was charged over the assault. Peter Hall faced charges connected to the false police report, and investigators were still examining Charles’s role. Nathan’s company released the results of its independent review to the board and police.
Nathan resigned as chief executive.
He told me before he announced it.
“I can stay and fight for the position,” he said. “But every day I do, Charles can make this about my job. The people who work there need someone focused on the company.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’ve had time to think. I want to help put it right, and I can do that without the title.”
That afternoon, he stood before the employees and admitted his failures in approving the payments. He promised to cooperate with the investigation and support an outside leader. I watched from home after Lily went down for a nap.
My mother sat beside me.
“His father would hate that speech,” she said.
“Probably.”
“Good.”
I laughed before I could stop myself.
That week, Lily asked Nathan to come to her preschool’s family afternoon. She had started attending a different school after Ramirez said it was safe, and she wanted him to see the paper houses her class had made.
Nathan looked at me first.
“If you want him there,” I told Lily, “we’ll invite him.”
“I do.”
He came early. Lily saw him through the classroom window and ran to the door.
“Daddy! My roof is purple.”
I had heard her call him Daddy in fear. This time, she shouted it with joy. I turned away for a moment so she would not see me cry.
He helped her glue a paper chimney to the roof. She told him where to put each piece. He listened.
On the way home, we stopped for ice cream. Lily sat between us, sticky and happy. For half an hour, no one mentioned Victoria, Charles, or the company.
Then Daniel called.
Investigators had found a recording made by Nathan’s father. It had been saved with the letters in the storage unit.
Nathan listened to a short part while Lily and I waited outside the car. When he came back, he looked older.
“What did he say?” I asked.
“He talked about you like you were an expense.”
I put down my ice cream.
“He also said Charles wanted the custody papers ready whether you contacted me or not. They planned to approach you after Lily’s fifth birthday.”
Lily was four.
I looked at her laughing in the back seat, unaware of how close that birthday was.
Nathan followed my gaze.
“They won’t get near her,” he said.
May you like
I believed he would do everything he could.
For the first time, I believed I would not have to do it alone.
