Chapter 10: The Weekend

Saturday morning started with careful politeness. Lily said please and thank you for everything, kept her voice quiet, and asked permission before touching anything in the apartment. She was treating Elena's home like a place she was visiting, not somewhere she belonged.

Elena recognized the behavior. Lily was testing, watching, waiting to see if Elena would get angry or reject her. The child had learned to be cautious, and that knowledge broke Elena's heart.

"What would you like to do today?" Elena asked over breakfast. Simple scrambled eggs this time, nothing fancy.

"I don't know." Lily pushed eggs around her plate. "What do you want to do?"

"I asked what you want to do. This is your weekend, sweetheart. We can do whatever sounds fun to you."

Lily looked uncertain, like this was a trick question. "Anything?"

"Anything appropriate for a seven year old," Elena said with a smile. "So probably no skydiving or driving sports cars."

That earned a tiny smile. "Could we go to the science museum? If you want to, I mean. We don't have to if you're too busy."

Elena's throat tightened. They used to go to the science museum together every month, back when they lived as a family. It had been their special tradition, just the two of them.

"I would love to go to the science museum," Elena said. "That's a perfect idea. Go get dressed and we'll leave in thirty minutes."

Lily hesitated in the doorway. "Mommy? Thank you for letting me stay."

"You never have to thank me for wanting to be with you. Never."

The drive to the museum took twenty minutes through Saturday morning traffic. Lily sat in the back seat, looking out the window, unusually quiet. Elena tried making conversation several times but got only short answers in response.

At the museum entrance, Elena bought tickets and a guidebook. Lily stood close to her side, not quite touching, maintaining that careful distance.

"Where should we start?" Elena asked, studying the map.

"I don't know. Where do you want to start?"

Elena knelt down to Lily's level. "Sweetheart, I need you to understand something. This weekend is about you. About what you want and what makes you happy. You don't have to guess what I want or try to please me. Just be yourself, okay?"

Lily bit her lip. "What if you don't like who I am anymore?"

The question landed like a punch to Elena's chest. "Why would you think that?"

"Because I was mean to you. I said Vivian was better. I chose her instead of you." Tears started forming in Lily's eyes. "What if you don't want me anymore because I was bad?"

Elena pulled her daughter into a tight hug, not caring that they were blocking the entrance with people trying to get past them. "Listen to me. You were never bad. You were confused and overwhelmed, and adults were pulling you in different directions. None of that was your fault. And nothing, absolutely nothing you could do would make me stop wanting you. Do you understand? You're my daughter. I love you unconditionally. That means no matter what."

Lily nodded against her shoulder, sniffling.

"Now," Elena said, pulling back and wiping Lily's tears. "Where does my brilliant girl want to start exploring?"

"The math exhibit?" Lily's voice was tentative, hopeful.

"Perfect choice."

The mathematics exhibit was interactive and engaging, designed to make abstract concepts tangible for children. There were puzzles to solve, patterns to identify, problems to work through on touchscreens.

Lily approached the first display cautiously, reading the instructions for a probability puzzle involving colored marbles and different containers.

"This one looks hard," she said.

"Want to try it together?" Elena asked.

They stood side by side in front of the screen. The problem asked them to calculate the probability of drawing a red marble from a container after certain transfers between containers.

Elena watched Lily's face as she read the problem. She saw the moment her daughter's mind engaged, the way her eyes sharpened with focus and her forehead creased slightly in concentration.

"Okay," Lily said slowly. "So if we start with ten marbles and five are red, that's fifty percent. But then we move three marbles and we don't know which colors, so we have to calculate all the possibilities."

"Exactly right," Elena said, pride warming her chest. "How would you figure out all the possibilities?"

Lily thought for a long moment. Elena didn't rush her, didn't provide answers, just waited patiently while her daughter worked through the logic.

"We make a tree," Lily said suddenly. "Like a decision tree. Each branch shows a different combination of what could be moved."

"That's brilliant. Show me."

Lily used the touchscreen to start creating branches, calculating probabilities for each scenario. Elena offered occasional guidance, but mostly she just watched her daughter's mind work. The analytical ability was unmistakable. Lily saw patterns, understood mathematical relationships, approached problems systematically.

She'd inherited Elena's way of thinking.

They worked through the problem together, Lily doing most of the work while Elena provided support when needed. When the screen flashed with congratulations for the correct answer, Lily's face transformed.

She smiled. A real, genuine, delighted smile. The first truly happy expression Elena had seen from her in months.

"We did it!" Lily said, then caught herself. "I mean, I did it. You helped but I figured it out."

"You absolutely did," Elena confirmed. "That was complex problem-solving, Lily. Most adults couldn't work through that."

"Really?"

"Really. You have a gift for mathematics. Do you like it? Working with numbers and patterns?"

Lily nodded enthusiastically. "It makes sense. Everything has rules and if you follow the rules, you get the right answer. It's not confusing like other things."

Elena understood exactly what she meant. Mathematics had always been her refuge too, a place where logic prevailed and emotions didn't complicate everything.

They spent two hours in the mathematics exhibit, working through puzzles and problems together. Lily became more animated, more confident, more herself. The careful guardedness melted away as she got absorbed in intellectual challenges.

By the time they left the museum, Lily was chattering about the exhibits, asking questions about mathematical concepts she wanted to understand better, already planning what they should explore on their next visit.

Elena's heart soared hearing Lily say "next visit" so naturally.

They had lunch at a small café near the museum, Lily still talking excitedly about probability theory and fractals. Other diners smiled at the bright child explaining mathematical concepts to her mother.

Back at the apartment, they worked on homework together. Lily's math homework was easy after the museum challenges. Elena helped her with a reading assignment, and they worked through a science worksheet about the water cycle.

As evening approached, Lily grew quieter again. The confidence from the museum faded as bedtime neared.

"Time to get ready for bed," Elena said gently after dinner.

Lily looked at the floor. "Mommy? Can I ask you something?"

"Always."

"Can I sleep in your bed tonight? With you?"

Elena's heart clenched. "Of course you can. Is something wrong?"

"I've been having bad dreams," Lily admitted quietly. "Almost every night. I wake up scared and nobody comes."

"What are the dreams about?"

Lily shrugged uncomfortably. "Different things. Sometimes I can't find you. Sometimes everyone is angry at me. Sometimes I'm just lost and I don't know where home is."

Elena pulled her daughter close. "Tonight, I'll be right next to you. If you have a bad dream, I'll be there. I promise."

They got ready for bed together. Lily brushed her teeth and changed into the pajamas Elena had bought and kept waiting in her room. When they climbed into Elena's bed, Lily immediately curled against her mother's side.

"Tell me a story?" Lily asked. "Not a made up one. A real one. About when I was little."

Elena wrapped her arm around her daughter and started speaking softly. "When you were born, you had the tiniest fingers I'd ever seen. They were perfect and small, and you would wrap them around my finger and hold on tight. The nurses said most babies didn't grip that strong right away, but you did."

"Really?"

"Really. And when you were three months old, you started smiling every time you heard music. Any kind of music. We would put on the radio and you would smile so big, like it was the most wonderful thing in the world."

Elena continued sharing memories. Lily's first steps at eleven months. The way she used to stack blocks in perfectly symmetrical patterns before she could even talk. How she loved bedtime stories and would bring the same three books every night for months.

"Daddy wasn't there for a lot of that, was he?" Lily asked quietly.

Elena chose her words carefully. "Your father worked a lot. He missed some things. But he was there for other moments. He loved seeing you, he just wasn't always available."

"Why didn't he love you?"

The question hung in the quiet bedroom. Elena took a slow breath, trying to figure out how to answer honestly without hurting her daughter or being bitter.

"You know how sometimes in math class, you get paired with someone for a project and you're supposed to work together, but it turns out you work differently and it's hard to collaborate?"

"Yeah. That happened with Tommy Jenkins. He wanted to do everything his way and didn't listen to my ideas."

"That's a little like what happened with your father and me. We got married for the wrong reasons, before we really knew if we were good partners. And it turned out we weren't. We thought differently, wanted different things, couldn't figure out how to work together as a team."

"So he didn't love you because you were wrong for each other?"

"Something like that. But Lily, I need you to understand this clearly. Even though our marriage didn't work, neither of us regrets having you. Not for one second. You are the best thing that came from that marriage. You are wanted and loved by both of us."

"Do you hate Daddy?"

Elena thought about that. "No. I don't hate him. I'm sad about how things turned out, and I wish some things had been different. But hatred takes too much energy. I'd rather put that energy into loving you."

Lily was quiet for several minutes, processing everything. Elena continued stroking her hair gently, feeling her daughter's breathing slow as she relaxed.

"Mommy?" Lily's voice was drowsy now, sleep pulling at her.

"Yes, baby?"

"I'm glad I'm here with you."

"I'm glad too. So glad."

"Can we do more math puzzles tomorrow?"

Elena smiled in the darkness. "As many as you want."

Lily fell asleep within minutes, safe and secure against her mother. Elena stayed awake longer, watching her daughter sleep peacefully for the first time in months.

No nightmares came that night. Lily slept deeply, holding onto Elena's hand even in sleep, and Elena held her daughter close, grateful for every minute of this precious weekend together.

Outside, the city continued its Saturday night rhythm. But inside Elena's small apartment, mother and daughter rested together, beginning to rebuild what had been broken, one careful moment at a time.