Chapter 7
Hector
The security feed showed Sarah sitting cross-legged on the floor beside my daughter. Lily held up a drawing, and Sarah leaned in to examine it. The angle made it impossible to see the page, but I watched Sarah’s face change—her smile reached her eyes this time.
I told myself I was monitoring Lily’s progress. That this had nothing to do with the argument three days ago, when Sarah stood in my office and told me I was wrong about my own daughter.
The audacity still sat wrong with me. Who was she to question my decisions?
She’d known Lily for six months. I’d raised her for eight years.
I’d been there when she took her first steps, said her first words, and learned to tie her shoes.
I’d watched my wife die, and my daughter retreated into silence.
But Sarah Tinsley thought she knew better.
The feed showed Lily reaching for a purple crayon. Sarah said something I couldn’t hear through the speakers. Lily’s shoulders relaxed slightly. That small shift in posture was the kind of detail most people missed. Sarah didn’t miss it.
I pressed my fingers to my temple and looked away from the screen.
The accident replayed in my mind without permission. It always did when I thought about ballet, about Joana—about the before.
I’d been in the kitchen that afternoon. Three fifteen in the afternoon.
I remembered because I’d glanced at the clock and calculated that Joana would have Lily at the studio by three thirty.
I’d planned to have dinner ready when they returned.
Risotto. Joana’s favorite. I’d been at the stove, stirring the arborio rice, adding stock in careful increments.
The kitchen smelled like butter and white wine.
Classical music played from the speaker on the counter.
My phone rang.
The spatula hit the floor before the officer finished his first sentence. “Your wife.” “Accident.” “You need to come now.”
The rice burned. I could smell it for days afterward, even after Mrs. Pearson cleaned the kitchen. That burnt smell followed me everywhere until I realized it wasn’t the kitchen. It was me. My clothes. My hair. My skin. Everything I touched carried the scent of something ruined.
I hadn’t cooked since.
The first time I tried—four months after the funeral—my hands started shaking before I could turn on the burner, my chest tightening as the kitchen walls pressed inward.
I made it to the hallway before my knees gave out, and Mrs. Pearson found me sitting on the floor, breathing like I’d run a marathon.
She never asked questions—just helped me stand and made tea neither of us drank.
The second time was worse—I got as far as picking up a knife. The weight of it in my hand sent me straight into a full panic attack where I couldn’t breathe, couldn’t think, could only see Joana’s face when I’d identified her body at the morgue.
After that, I stopped trying.
Lily had been in the car when it happened.
Strapped in her booster seat behind Joana.
The drunk driver had hit them on the passenger side.
Joana died instantly. Lily walked away with cuts from the glass and bruises from the impact, but she suffered her own trauma with the ballet clothes Joana had bought her.
The pink shoes with ribbons, the practice leotards hanging in her closet. Every time Lily saw them, she’d start crying—silent tears that broke something in me each time. She’d stand in her doorway and stare at those clothes and just weep.
So I got rid of them, burned them in the building’s incinerator at two in the morning when no one would see. I withdrew Lily from the studio and removed every reminder that dancing had ever existed in our lives.
The crying stopped, but the silence began.
Lily was safe though, and that was what mattered. She was alive and whole and nothing would take her from me the way Joana had been taken.
Sarah didn’t understand that. She saw a girl who missed dancing. I saw a daughter who associated ballet with death.
The office door opened, and I didn’t look up. “What is it?”
“Your car will be ready in twenty minutes.” Gianna’s voice carried that careful neutrality she used when she thought I was in a bad mood. “Your flight to Boston leaves at four, and traffic should be manageable if you leave soon.”
“Fine.”
“Mrs. Pearson packed your overnight bag, and she said you forgot your phone charger last time.”
I finally looked at her. “Is that all?”
Gianna hesitated in the doorway with the same expression her mother got sometimes, like she wanted to say something but knew better. “Ms. Tinsley’s session with Lily just finished, so they’re in the living room.”
“I’m aware.”
“Right, of course.” She backed toward the door. “I’ll let you know when the car arrives.”
She left before I could dismiss her properly.
I stood and straightened my jacket while the monitor still showed Sarah and Lily, though the angle had changed. They must have moved. I switched off the feed and headed downstairs.
The living room was empty except for Lily, who sat on the couch with headphones covering her ears and her eyes closed. Her fingers tapped against her knee in rhythm with whatever she was hearing, the movement unconscious and natural.
Sarah’s idea—suggested weeks ago before our fight. She’d said music might help Lily express herself when words felt impossible, so I’d authorized the purchase of noise canceling headphones and a tablet loaded with instrumental playlists.
Lily uses them constantly now.
I approached the couch, and Lily’s eyes opened when my shadow fell across her. She pulled one headphone off her ear and looked at me with those dark eyes that matched mine exactly.
“I’m leaving for Boston,” I said. “I’ll be back tomorrow evening.”
She nodded once, her face giving nothing away.
“Mrs. Pearson is here if you need anything, and Gianna too.”
Another nod.
“Is there anything you want before I go?”
Lily’s gaze drifted past me toward the windows, and she slid the headphone back over her ear before turning her body slightly away. Not enough to be rude, just enough to make her intention clear.
Conversation over.
I stood there for another moment, searching for something else to say while nothing came. The distance between us felt wider than the few feet of space that actually separated us, and I wondered when it had grown so large. Had it been gradual, or had I simply not noticed?
“I’ll see you tomorrow,” I said to her back.
She didn’t acknowledge me. The music kept playing, and her fingers kept tapping.
I left the living room and found Mrs. Pearson in the kitchen, wiping down counters that were already spotless.
“Call me if anything happens,” I said. “Anything at all.”
“Of course, Mr. Valdez.” She set down her cloth and met my eyes. “She’ll be fine, and we’ll take good care of her.”
“I know you will.”
“Perhaps,” she said carefully, “when you return, you might consider spending more time with her.”
The observation stung because it was accurate. “Noted.”
I collected my bag from the entryway and headed to the elevator.
When the doors opened, I stepped inside and pressed the button for the ground floor.
My reflection stared back at me from the polished metal walls, showing me exactly what I was: a man going through motions, following routines, existing.
The lobby was quiet when I arrived, my driver waiting by the entrance with keys in hand.
Then I saw her.
Sarah stood near the building’s side entrance with her phone pressed to her ear and her back to me, but I recognized the tension in her shoulders instantly.
Her free hand was buried in her hair, gripping tight enough that her knuckles showed white as she spoke rapidly into the phone.
I couldn’t make out words, but her tone carried clearly enough: distressed, maybe scared.
I should have kept walking. Should have gotten in the car and left for my meeting. Her personal problems weren’t my concern unless they affected Lily’s therapy. That’s what I told myself as I changed direction and moved toward her instead.
“I know that!” Her voice rose as I got closer. “I’m trying, you said it’s at the end of the month!”
She fell silent, listening to whoever was on the other end, her shoulders drawing up tighter. When she spoke again, her voice had gone quiet and defeated. “I understand. Yes, I’ll figure it out.”
The call ended, and she lowered the phone but didn’t move otherwise. She just stood there with her hand still tangled in her hair, staring at nothing.
“Ms. Tinsley.”
She spun around fast enough that she nearly dropped her phone, and her eyes went wide when she saw me before narrowing immediately. “How long have you been standing there?”
“Long enough to know something’s wrong.”
“Were you eavesdropping on my private conversation?” Her voice sharpened in a way I hadn’t heard before. “Do you make a habit of lurking around corners listening to people’s phone calls?”
“I wasn’t lurking, and you’re standing outside my building.”
“So that gives you the right to spy on me?”
“I’m not spying.” My patience, already thin, began to fray completely. “I’m asking if there’s a problem that might affect my daughter’s care.”
“Oh, of course.” She laughed, but there was no humor in it. “Everything comes back to Lily, doesn’t it? God forbid I have my own life or my own problems that don’t revolve around your daughter.”
“If those problems interfere with your work, then yes, they concern me.”
“They don’t interfere, and I do my job. I show up on time, I work with Lily, I leave. What happens outside those sessions is none of your business.”
“You were thirty minutes late last week.” I stepped closer. “Whatever’s going on with you, fix it and don’t bring it into my home. Tell me if you need any—”
“I’m not bringing anything into your home!” Her voice rose to match mine. “I work hard for your daughter, and I care about her progress. The fact that I also have a life that’s falling apart doesn’t change how much I give during those sessions.”
“Is that what that phone call was about? What happened?”
“None. Of. Your. Business.” She enunciated each word like I was particularly slow. “I don’t owe you an explanation for my personal life, Mr. Valdez. You pay me to work with Lily, and that’s where your authority ends.”
She pushed past me toward the street, moving fast enough that her bag swung against her hip. I watched her go, torn between irritation and something uncomfortably close to concern.
My driver appeared at my elbow. “Sir? We should leave soon if we want to make your flight.”
“Right.”
I got in the car and settled into the back seat before pulling out my laptop to review notes for tomorrow’s meetings. The car moved into traffic while I read the same paragraph three times without absorbing a single word.
Sarah’s face kept replacing the text on my screen—her expression in that moment before she’d known I was there. The fear had been visceral and raw, and whatever she was dealing with wasn’t small or manageable.
I closed my laptop and looked out the window at the city passing by. None of this was my concern. Sarah Tinsley’s problems were her own. I employed her to help Lily, nothing more, and whatever personal crisis she was navigating had nothing to do with me or my daughter.
But I couldn’t stop seeing the panic in her eyes.
The car merged onto the highway while Boston waited ahead with its meetings and investors and business decisions that actually mattered. I had real problems to focus on, legitimate concerns that deserved my attention.
I opened my laptop again and forced myself to read, to focus, to stop thinking about Sarah Tinsley and whatever she was hiding.
It didn’t work.