Back to Lily

Chapter 47:Back to Lily

The property came into view at the end of the driveway just after three.

Judith was out of the car before it fully stopped. She did not run but she walked fast up the path and pushed the front door open.

Grace appeared from the kitchen. “She is in the garden,” she said.

Judith went straight through the house and out the back door.

Lily was at the far end of the garden near the apple tree. She had a stick in her hand and was drawing something in the mud at the base of the tree with great concentration. She looked up when she heard the door.

She dropped the stick and came running.

Judith met her halfway across the grass and picked her up and held her and did not say anything for a moment. Just held her.

Lily put both arms around her neck. “You came back.”

“I said I would,” Judith said.

“I drew you a picture,” Lily said into her shoulder. “Grace helped me put it on the fridge.”

“I will look at it in a minute,” Judith said.

She stood there in the cold garden holding her daughter and let everything from the last few hours settle quietly where it belonged.

After a moment Lily pulled back and looked at her face. Checking the way she always did.

“It went okay,” Lily said. Not a question.

“It went okay,” Judith said.

Lily nodded. Satisfied. She wriggled down and took Judith’s hand and pulled her toward the apple tree.

“Come and see what I was drawing,” she said.

Judith let herself be pulled.

Dan and Ethan came in a few minutes later.

Grace had tea ready. She always had tea ready. Judith was beginning to think the woman simply had a permanent kettle going somewhere that nobody could see.

They sat around the kitchen table again. Same table. Same cups. But the feeling in the room was different from last night. Less weight. Like something had been put down and not picked back up.

Lily sat beside Ethan and showed him her picture from the fridge. It was a drawing of the garden done in green and yellow crayon. The apple tree was a brown stick with a green cloud on top. The swing was a purple rectangle. There were three tall figures standing on the grass and one small one.

“Which one is me,” Ethan asked.

Lily pointed to the tallest figure.

“And who is that one,” he said pointing to the small figure.

“That is Mr. Bear,” Lily said seriously.

“Mr. Bear gets his own space in the picture,” Ethan said.

“Mr. Bear is important,” Lily said.

Ethan looked at the picture for a moment. “Yes,” he said. “He clearly is.”

Grace put a plate of sandwiches on the table and sat down herself for the first time all day. She poured her own tea and looked around the table at all of them.

“Eat,” she said simply.

They ate.

Dan’s phone rang halfway through.

He looked at the screen and his face changed slightly. He stood up and went into the hallway.

Judith looked at Ethan across the table.

“Juliana,” Ethan said quietly.

Judith nodded and looked back at her sandwich.

She thought about Juliana sitting in her hotel room through all of yesterday and last night and this morning waiting for news. Waiting for Dan. Carrying the weight of the recording she had made and everything she knew and had kept to herself for so long. That was not an easy thing to have done alone.

Dan came back after ten minutes. He sat down and picked up his cup.

“She is coming here,” he said. “Tonight. If that is alright.”

He looked at Judith when he said it. Not at Ethan. At Judith.

She understood why. This was Judith’s space in a way. Her situation. Her call.

“Of course,” Judith said. “She should come.”

Dan nodded. “Thank you.”

Grace refilled everyone’s cups.

Lily had climbed down from her chair and was on the floor with Mr. Bear conducting some kind of serious business that involved lining up the salt and pepper shakers in a row.

Nobody commented on it.

Sarah called at four.

Judith took it at the kitchen table this time. She did not go into another room. There was nothing to hide from anyone in this house anymore.

“Two things,” Sarah said. “First. Peter Cassel resigned from his government position an hour ago. No statement. No interview. Just a one line resignation through his office.”

Judith looked at the table.

“Second thing,” Sarah said. “Richard Blackwood has requested a meeting with the police. Voluntarily. His lawyers called Detective Marsh this afternoon.” A pause. “He is not waiting to be called in. He is going in on his own terms which means he is about to make a deal and throw someone else under it.”

“Cassel,” Judith said.

“Almost certainly,” Sarah said. “And possibly Whitmore too. He is going to try and position himself as the person who cooperated while the others ran.”

“Can he do that,” Judith said.

“His lawyers are very good,” Sarah said honestly. “He will not walk away clean. But he might walk away with a lighter outcome than the others.” She paused. “That is the reality of how these things work sometimes Judith. I want you to be prepared for that.”

Judith thought about Richard Blackwood on the pavement outside Dan’s building. The pleasant voice. The careful threat about Lily.

She thought about what her mother had said. You started it. You pulled all of it out into the light.

Whatever deal Richard Blackwood made with the police he could not undo the recording. He could not undo Cassel’s resignation. He could not undo the press conference or Robert’s statement or any of the documents now sitting in a police file.

“I understand,” Judith said. “Thank you Sarah.”

She ended the call and looked at Ethan and Dan.

“Your father is going to the police voluntarily,” she said. “He is making a deal.”

The two brothers looked at each other.

Dan spoke first. “He is protecting himself.”

“Yes,” Judith said.

“He will give them Cassel,” Ethan said. “And Whitmore. And he will try to make it look like he was a smaller part of it than he was.”

“Yes,” Judith said again.

Ethan was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “He cannot give them Gerald Thompson’s name without putting himself in the room for that decision. Whatever deal he makes, that does not go away.”

“No,” Dan said. “It does not.”

Lily appeared at Judith’s elbow with Mr. Bear under one arm and the salt shaker in her other hand.

“Can Mr. Bear have a sandwich,” she asked.

Everyone at the table looked at her.

“Mr. Bear can have half of mine,” Dan said.

Lily looked very pleased with this arrangement and climbed back up onto her chair.

Grace caught Judith’s eye across the table.

Something in the older woman’s face was warm and steady and completely certain.

Like someone who had seen enough of the world to know that the days when small ordinary things happened around big difficult ones were the days worth holding onto.

Judith looked back at her daughter carefully dividing Dan’s sandwich for Mr. Bear.

She held onto it.