August 16, Sunday
LILY'S FACE filled the screen looking tired and unkempt. It was hard to reconcile this version of my daughter with the girl who spent forty-five minutes perfecting a single eyeliner wing.
"I can't sleep," she announced, before I'd even gotten out a hello. "Like, at all. I lie there for hours. This is literally your fault."
I inhaled for strength. "Lily, I'm sorry you're not sleeping well. That sounds hard." I kept my voice even, resisting the urge to say that I was having the best sleep of my life since the day I'd brought her home from the hospital. "How was the party at Scott's last night?"
Her expression shifted, quick and defensive. "Fine. A lot of people were there. A couple of girls asked me if you'd left our family."
I closed my eyes briefly. "I'm so sorry about that."
"But not sorry enough to come home?"
"You know I can't do that. Where's Josh?"
Josh dropped on a stool next to her. "Here. My tooth hurts."
"Which tooth?"
"The back one. It's been hurting for like a week."
"Has anyone called the dentist?"
"I told Dad. Twice."
"Please tell him again, honey. Or call Elaine—she'd be glad to take you."
He gave a noncommittal grunt that I chose to interpret as agreement.
"And Tucker," I said. "Is anyone walking him, feeding him?"
"YES," they said together, with the perfectly synchronized irritation of siblings who agreed on almost nothing except the injustice of being asked the same question too often.
"Okay. I just wanted to check."
Lily leaned forward, chin propped on her hand, something calculating flickering across her face. "So how's the trial going? Like, is it super intense? Have you figured out if he's guilty?"
I saw, in the periphery of my vision, Deputy Wells shift his weight almost imperceptibly, attention sharpening the way it had the last time this particular subject had wandered too close to the surface.
"You know I can't talk about that," I said.
"But it's the Blackthorne case, isn't it?" Josh asked excitedly. "It's all over the news, the guy's a mobster."
The deputy cleared his throat in warning.
"I have to go, guys. Look out for each other this week. I love you both."
Neither of them offered much in response—a mumbled bye from Josh, a distracted wave from Lily already reaching for her phone—and then the screen went dark.
Deputy Wells fell into step beside me as we walked back toward my room, his stride shortened, as it always was, to match mine.
Somewhere around the halfway point, I stopped walking.
"You must think I'm a terrible mother."
He didn't answer right away, and for a moment I regretted saying it at all, the words hanging there in the fluorescent-lit hallway.
Then he said, carefully, in the measured way he seemed to say most things, "I think you're a mother who isn't home right now, doing a job that requires you not to be. Those aren't the same thing."
It probably wasn't meant to be much—the kind of neutral, professional reassurance he'd likely offered dozens of jurors before me.
But I held onto it anyway.