Chapter 16
Lily stopped carrying the twins everywhere.
That was how I knew she was beginning to trust us.
At first, Owen and Noah stayed strapped to her even inside Sarah’s new house.
If a nanny offered to hold one, Lily said no.
If I offered, she watched my hands.
No offense taken.
Then one morning, I arrived and found Noah asleep in a crib.
Owen was with Sarah.
Lily sat alone at the kitchen table eating cereal.
Alone.
Five years old.
Doing one thing.
That should have been ordinary.
It felt enormous.
I sat across from her.
“Where’s the backpack?”
She pointed at a chair.
Not on her body.
Progress.
“What’s inside now?”
“Stuff.”
Fair.
Then she pulled out the crumpled $11.40.
Still there.
“You really kept it.”
“I told you.”
“Right.”
She counted it carefully.
Then looked at me.
“How much was the milk?”
“Formula.”
“How much?”
I remembered exactly.
“Nineteen twenty-six.”
Her face tightened.
“So I owe seven eighty-six.”
I almost laughed.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Lily.”
“When I’m grown.”
I leaned back.
There was no winning against Mercer stubbornness when it came packaged in a five-year-old.
“Fine.”
Her eyes widened.
“Fine?”
“You can repay me when you’re grown.”
She smiled.
“Okay.”
“One condition.”
Suspicion returned.
“What?”
“When you’re grown, you buy food for somebody who needs it.”
She thought.
“That counts?”
“Yes.”
“Even if it’s not you?”
“Especially then.”
She nodded.
Deal.
I looked at the $11.40 again.
Once it represented everything Lily had.
May you like
Now it was just money in a backpack.
That difference mattered.
