Part 2 of 3

“She has Margaret’s eyes.”

My breath caught.

For six days, Diane had told everyone Lily had Ethan’s nose, Ethan’s chin, Ethan’s ears, Ethan’s expressions.

Nobody had seen my mother in her.

Walter did immediately.

We were halfway across town when Ethan called.

“Where are you?”

“With Lily.”

“I know that. Where are you going?”

I watched the highway lights slide across the window.

“Somewhere we’re both included in the definition of family.”

He exhaled sharply.

“Hannah, it was one dinner.”

“No, Ethan. It was six years. Tonight was just the first time I stopped explaining it away.”

He became quiet.

Then he asked who had picked me up.

“Walter.”

“Who’s Walter?”

“My father’s business manager.”

Another pause.

“Your father has a business manager?”

Despite everything, I almost laughed.

“Good night, Ethan.”

I ended the call.

The Room That Had Been Waiting

My father’s house sat west of Denver, beyond a stone gate and a long drive lined with cottonwoods.

I hadn’t slept there in years.

When Walter opened the front door, the house smelled exactly as I remembered: cedar, coffee, old books, and the faint lavender scent my mother had loved.

My father wasn’t waiting in the foyer.

That surprised me.

Instead, the housekeeper told me, “Your father is in his study. He said you need rest more than you need questions. He’ll wait until you’re ready.”

Upstairs, my childhood bedroom had fresh sheets, towels, bottled water, and a new toothbrush.

But the adjoining guest room stopped me cold.

It was a nursery.

Cream walls.

A white crib.

A rocking chair.

Diapers arranged neatly beneath the changing table.

Children’s books lined up by height.

Above the crib hung a mobile made of tiny painted lilies.

I turned toward Walter.

“When did he do this?”

“June.”

“June?”

“Your aunt mentioned you were expecting. He started preparing the room the following weekend.”

I walked beneath the mobile.

“He knew her name?”

Walter smiled.

“When he heard you were considering Lily, he became very concerned that these flowers actually looked like lilies. He rejected the first mobile because he said they looked like daisies.”

A laugh escaped me before I could stop it.

Then I started crying.

“Why didn’t he tell me?”

Walter’s expression softened.

“Because he believed you had asked for distance, and for once he wanted to respect what you asked for. He told me that if you ever called, he wanted the room ready before you arrived.”

On the dresser sat an envelope.

Inside was an old brass key attached to a faded wooden tag.

Hannah’s room.

My mother had written those words when I was twelve.

Beneath it was a note from my father.

Your room never stopped being yours. Everything else can wait.

I sat in my mother’s old rocking chair and cried quietly while Lily slept beneath the little wooden flowers.

Three in the Morning

At three that morning, Lily woke hungry.

I was feeding her in the nursery when I heard footsteps stop outside the door.

“Hannah?”

My father’s voice.

“Come in.”

He appeared wearing plaid pajama pants and an old navy sweater.

At seventy-three, he looked smaller than the man I remembered.

“Do you need anything?”

“We’re okay.”

He nodded but didn’t leave.

Then he said, almost embarrassed, “I learned how to warm a bottle.”

I looked at him.

“You did?”

“Walter showed me. Then I watched two videos. The first time I made it too warm.”

I laughed.

My father smiled uncertainly.

Then he sat on the floor beside the rocking chair.

For a while, neither of us spoke.

Finally, he looked at Lily.

“She has your mother’s eyes.”

I nodded.

“Walter said that too.”

He looked down at his hands.

“Walter has been right about a lot of things.”

The room grew quiet.

“He told me to leave Seattle,” my father continued. “That week your mother was in the hospital. He told me the project could wait.”

I stopped rocking.

He had never told me this.

“I kept saying there was time,” he said. “I thought providing for my family was the same thing as being there for my family.”

His voice became rough.

“After your mother was gone, I couldn’t look at you without remembering that I wasn’t there when you needed me. So I did the stupidest thing possible. I stayed away even more.”

“Why?”

“Because shame can make a man very foolish.”

He looked around the nursery.

“A few years ago, I finally started talking to someone about all of it. She asked me what I could still change. I told her nothing. Your mother was gone, and my daughter didn’t need me.”

He looked at me.

“She asked whether you had actually said you didn’t need me, or whether I had simply decided that because it was easier than risking hearing it.”

I lowered my eyes.

“Then Aunt Susan told you I was pregnant.”

“Yes.”

“So you built a nursery.”

“Apparently building things is still my only useful skill.”

I laughed through tears.

Then, without planning to, I stood and held Lily toward him.

He froze.

“Hannah, I haven’t held a baby in thirty years.”

“Support her head.”