Chapter 16
A year after I found Lila, the girls turned four.
Shared birthday?
Their choice.
They said yes.
Same cake?
No.
Lucy wanted chocolate.
Lila wanted strawberry.
Two cakes.
Half the family acted like this was symbolic.
It wasn’t.
Children like different cake.
Margaret sent gifts separately.
Good.
Imogen attended for one hour.
Allowed.
Colin did not.
No arguments.
At one point Lucy disappeared.
My body tightened automatically.
Then Lila laughed.
“She wardrobe.”
Of course.
Lucy burst from the costume wardrobe wearing a ridiculous hat.
Everyone laughed.
Including Lila.
The serving hatch door had been removed months earlier, but part of the frame remained.
Lila walked past it without looking.
That mattered.
Later she asked me:
“Daddy?”
“Yes?”
“Did you think I dead?”
There it was.
Older now.
More direct.
“Yes.”
“Did you cry?”
I almost laughed from pain.
“Every day.”
She considered.
“Then why no find?”
The question I knew would come.
I told truth.
“Because people I trusted told me you died, and I believed them.”
“Bad?”
“I should have asked more questions.”
She nodded.
Not absolution.
Not blame.
Just information.
Then:
“You know now.”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
Children sometimes delay judgment until later years.
Fine.
I would answer again when she was ten.
Fifteen.
Twenty-five.
May you like
However many times needed.
Truth does not expire after first explanation.
