“Where does she go to school? Who takes care of her while you’re at work? Why doesn’t she live with you?”
“She’s in second grade,” Ethan said. “She’s happy there. She has friends. People close to me help take care of her.”
“What people?” I said. “Give me their names.”
“Claire, please…”
“No! You don’t get to keep hiding things from me!”
Dad stepped between us.
“He’s been doing his best, Claire,” Dad said.
I turned on him.
“How would you know what he’s been doing?”
“Ethan talks to me,” Dad said. “He asks me for advice.”
“Apparently he tells you everything,” I said, “except how to stop lying to your daughter!”
Dad flinched like I’d hit him.
I grabbed my bag off the floor. I grabbed the handle of my suitcase.
“Claire, where are you going?” Ethan asked.
“Anywhere but here.”
Neither of them tried to stop me.
At the front door, I turned around.
“I don’t believe either of you has told me the whole truth,” I said.
Then I left.
I drove toward my friend Sarah’s apartment across town.
I barely noticed the road. I drove through two yellow lights that were really red. I didn’t turn on the radio. I just drove, gripping the steering wheel, saying the name over and over in my head.
Lily. Seven years old.
Something about that name bothered me. It sat in my chest like a splinter.
Then, at a red light on Hennepin Avenue, I suddenly remembered.
There was a little girl named Lily who came to visit Dad.
