I looked at Lily again.
She had on a school sweatshirt, jeans, mismatched socks.
There was a chemistry textbook sticking out of her backpack.
Notebooks.
A half-zipped pencil case.
This was not a runaway adventure.
This was a child trying to keep being a child while the adults in her life played musical chairs with her address.
“How long has she been here?” I asked.
“Three nights.”
Three nights.
Three nights under my floor while I washed dishes and watched the weather and thought life had calmed down.
Three nights of whispered footsteps and held breath and showers timed to avoid notice.
Something hot flashed through me then.
Not hatred.
Not even betrayal, exactly.
Something messier.
The sting of being trusted too little after trying so hard to be kind.
“You lied to me,” I said.
Mark nodded.
“Yes.”
He didn’t defend it.
Which somehow made me angrier.
“I was going to tell you.”
“When?”
He looked down.
“After Sunday.”
There it was again.
Sunday.
As if if he could just make it to Sunday, the rest of the world would sort itself out.
I pressed my fingers against the bridge of my nose.
Upstairs, the refrigerator hummed.
The old furnace clicked.
Normal house sounds.
Meanwhile a whole second life had been happening beneath my feet.
“I got a call from my daughter today,” I said.
That made Mark look up.
“She needs a place to stay. Her and my grandson.”
The room changed.
You could feel it.
Lily lowered her eyes.
Mark went white.
He understood immediately.
More than immediately.
He understood because he had been the person with fewer claims before.
He knew what it felt like to be the easier sacrifice.
“We’ll go,” he said.
Lily turned to him so fast the blanket slipped off her shoulders.
“Mark—”
“It’s okay.”
“No, it’s not.”
His voice sharpened.
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