Chapter 8 - The Question Beside the Bassin(tale)e she placed the rabbit.
She stood beside it, rubbing one damp boot against the other while Emma closed the door against the snow. June slept in the bassinet near the radiator, one fist tucked against her cheek.
Emma carried the cocoa to the table.
“You want to take your cardigan off?”
Lily shook her head.
“Okay.”
Emma sat without reaching for her. The child therapist had taught her not to fill every silence, not to turn affection into another demand Lily had to manage.
Lily looked at the bassinet.
“Does she call you Mom yet?”
“She mostly calls me by crying.”
That earned the smallest smile.
Lily moved closer to June. She studied the baby’s face as if looking for evidence that something had already been taken from her.
“Daddy said babies make families start over.”
Emma felt the warning beneath the sentence.
“Families change when babies come,” she said. “That doesn’t mean the people already in them disappear.”
“But I’m not in your family on paper.”
The words were too precise for a six-year-old.
Emma set down her mug.
“Did someone say that to you?”
Lily touched the rabbit’s worn ear.
“Vanessa said it before the judge said she couldn’t come over. She said when June got here, you’d have a real daughter.”
Emma kept her face steady even as anger rose behind her ribs.
“Vanessa was wrong.”
“What if the paper is right?”
Emma had no comforting lie available. She was not Lily’s biological mother. She had never adopted her. The parenting agreement allowed contact because the evaluator believed losing Emma would harm Lily, but Daniel remained the parent with legal authority.
“I can’t promise what a judge will decide years from now,” Emma said. “I can promise I won’t disappear because June is here.”
Lily looked toward the front window where Caroline waited in her car.
“Daddy says you already left.”
“I left the house because it wasn’t safe for me to stay there. I didn’t leave you.”
“You didn’t take me.”
“I wasn’t legally allowed to.”
Lily frowned.
“That sounds like the safe thing.”
Emma leaned forward.
“No. It’s an unfair true thing.”
The distinction seemed to settle somewhere inside Lily, though not comfortably.
June stirred. Lily stepped back at once.
“She’s waking up.”
“She does that.”
“Do you want me to leave?”
“No.”
“But you have to feed her.”
“I can feed her while you’re here.”
Emma lifted June from the bassinet. Lily watched every movement—the blanket pulled over Emma’s shoulder, the baby tucked close, the rocking chair creaking softly.
After several minutes, Lily carried her rabbit across the room and sat on the floor beside Emma’s feet.
“Can I tell her one true thing?”
“Whenever you’re ready.”
Lily leaned toward the baby.
“I was here first,” she whispered. Then, after a pause, “But you can stay.”
Emma pressed her lips together.
When Caroline returned an hour later, Lily asked if she could visit again on Saturday.
“Your dad has to approve the schedule,” Caroline said.
Lily’s shoulders dropped.
Emma crouched carefully, June against her chest.
“We’ll ask through the right people.”
Outside, Caroline helped Lily into the car. Before closing the door, she looked back at Emma.
“Daniel lost another commercial contract this morning.”
Emma adjusted the blanket around June.
“What does that have to do with Lily’s visits?”
“He says he may have to sell Beechwood.”
The house Emma had surrendered without a fight was suddenly no longer the important part.
“Where would they go?”
“He’s talking about taking a management job in Indianapolis.”
Emma stared at the tire tracks disappearing beneath fresh snow.
May you like
Caroline lowered her voice.
“He wants to leave Ohio before the court can make your relationship with Lily harder to erase.”
