“And after the months?”
“After the months,” she said, “I booked a flight.”
“When?”
“September.”
“You disappeared in March.”
“I know.”
“Then you came home in September.”
Her eyes stayed on the table.
“No.”
I waited.
“You disappeared in March.”
She swallowed once.
“I canceled it.”
“Why?”
She touched the rim of the espresso cup she had brought upstairs but never drank.
“I saw the article.”
“I canceled it.”
Marcus looked at her.
She ignored him.
“The one about the memorial. The photo of you holding Lily by the casket. You looked…”
“Careful,” I whispered.
She nodded. “You looked like someone who had learned how to stand because falling would hurt the baby.”
I remembered that day.
She ignored him.
Lily had slept through most of the service with her cheek pressed to my jacket. Every person who hugged me had said she was a blessing.
No one knew what to say when a blessing cried for a mother who could not answer.
“I thought if I walked in then,” Sarah said, “I would break what you had built around the loss.”
A laugh came out of me.
“What I built?”
“You survived, Harry.”
“What I built?”
“I ate standing over the sink because Lily screamed whenever I put her down.”
Sarah’s hand closed around nothing.
“I know.”
“You do not know.”
“I watched videos Marcus found online,” she said. “Your sister posted some. Birthdays. Christmas. Lily walking.”
I turned to Marcus.
“You let her watch instead of sending her home?”
“You do not know.”
His jaw moved.
“Every time.”
“Every time what?”
“Every time she said she would go tomorrow.”
The word sat there.
Tomorrow.
I looked back at Sarah.
Her face had gone very still.
“Every time she said she would go tomorrow.”
“The first tomorrow was because I could not walk without help,” she said. “The next, because I was still forgetting my words. Then came the days my face looked different from the burn scars. And finally, because Lily’s first birthday had passed.”
She pulled her sleeve over her wrist though the day was warm.
“Every missed day made the next one harder.”
“That is not an answer.”
“No.”
“Every missed day made the next one harder.”
“That is cowardice.”
She nodded. “Yes.”
I had wanted Sarah to defend herself.
Some part of me needed her to make it easier to hate her.
She refused me that comfort.
“That is cowardice.”
Marcus finally spoke.
“You can blame me for keeping quiet.”
I did not look away from Sarah.
“I already do.” I turned then. “But not for what you think.”
“I already do.”
“I told her to go home, Harry,” Marcus said. “At first kindly. Later badly. We fought about it in hospitals, rented rooms, airport parking lots. I bought tickets she did not use.”
“Heroic.”
“No.”
His face did not harden.
