Chapter 4

Saturday morning, Lily sat outside the exam room waiting for Ethan.

At 9:00, I texted him: Lily is about to have her stitches removed. At 9:20, he replied: Something went wrong at the rehearsal. I'll be late. When the doctor came in at 9:40, Lily whispered, "Can we wait five more minutes?"

Five minutes later, she asked for three more. The third time she asked, even the doctor softened her voice. "It won't hurt as much once they're out."

Lily didn't look at the doctor. She just asked me, "He isn't coming, is he?"

I held her hand. "No."

She turned her face to the wall. "Then take them out."

Her palms were slick with sweat from the pain, but she didn't make a sound. The doctor told her she was brave. Lily said, "My dad says this isn't a big deal."

Back in the room, Claire sent me a video. Under the rehearsal lights, Ethan stood beside her in a suit. Claire held up her bouquet and laughed. "If I ran out on this wedding, would you take me with you?"

The people around them egged her on. Ethan didn't say no right away. He only said quietly, "Don't be ridiculous."

After the video came one more message: He looks good today.

In the past, I would have called to confront him and tried to make Ethan see what Claire was doing. This time, I saved the video and forwarded it directly to my divorce attorney, Diane Foster.

Ethan and I had filed for divorce in Alameda County Superior Court when we separated six months earlier, and he had filed a response. We had completed our financial disclosures, and California's six-month waiting period would expire the following week. Diane asked whether I wanted the video included in our settlement materials.

I replied: Yes. Move forward with primary physical custody, child support, and the parenting schedule as planned.

Ethan finally came that afternoon, carrying a stuffed sea otter. Lily spotted the wedding label on the box right away and asked calmly, "Is this a favor from Claire's wedding?"

Ethan hurried to say he had grabbed the wrong one, then promised to take her to the Monterey Bay Aquarium that weekend. Lily had been asking to go for six months. She asked, "What if Aunt Claire calls again?"

Ethan snapped, "She won't. I'm not a criminal, and you don't need to interrogate me."

Lily was quiet for a moment, then nodded anyway. "Okay."

But before we could leave that weekend, Claire called. Her wedding was off, and she was falling apart. Ethan gripped the steering wheel and finally said he would drop us at home before going to find her.

Lily took the dolphin headband out of her backpack and snapped it in two.

Diane reminded me that Ethan's signature did not erase his status as Lily's father. The court would consider Lily's best interests and whether Ethan could follow a consistent parenting schedule. I told her, "I'm not asking my daughter to hate him. I'm just done explaining every absence as something he couldn't help."

That night, Lily pulled up the aquarium website and spent a long time studying the sea-otter feeding schedule and the hours for the jellyfish exhibit. She asked whether the dolphin headband would press against her healing incision. I said it wouldn't, and only then did she save a screenshot. When she snapped the headband later, I understood that she hadn't stopped wanting to go. She simply never wanted to sit in a car full of hope again.

Before leaving to find Claire, Ethan said she might hurt herself now that the wedding was off. I didn't stop him. An adult in crisis can ask for help, but that doesn't mean Lily's plans should be sacrificed again. Ethan refused to understand that the problem had never been whether he went. It was that he put us last every time.

"Mom." She was looking out the window. "I don't want to wait anymore."