Then she asked, “Is that really Rachel?”
“Yes,” I said. “And I would like to see you.”
Lily hesitated.
“Okay.”
The call ended.
Sam sat down heavily.
“Rachel, you don’t understand.”
“Then explain.”
He rubbed his forehead.
“Lily was angry about our wedding.”
I remembered that day.
I’d been 35.
Standing in a white dress, watching the church doors.
Sam had told me his 16-year-old daughter refused to attend.
I’d asked him to try again.
He’d said she wanted nothing to do with his new wife.
I believed him.
Because I always believed Sam.
“Did you tell Lily I didn’t want her at our wedding?” I asked.
He looked up sharply.
“Who said that?”
“You told her I wasn’t comfortable having her here tonight. Was the wedding the same?”
His silence answered me.
Vanessa stared at him.
“Sam?”
He whispered, “She threatened to ruin everything.”
“What does that mean?”
Sam looked at Vanessa.
“She knew things about our divorce.”
Vanessa’s face changed.
“She was 16, Sam. She knew what she’d lived through.”
She looked at me.
“I knew Lily was angry with Sam. But I never knew he’d told her you didn’t want her there.”
Sam shook his head.
“She said she wouldn’t come to my wedding and pretend I’d done nothing wrong to her mother.”
I remembered Sam’s stories.
His broken heart.
His supposedly selfish ex-wife.
And the daughter who had rejected me.
“You were afraid she’d tell me?”
Sam nodded.
“I thought she’d calm down after the wedding.”
“But she didn’t. She kept asking why Rachel hated her.”
“And what did you tell her?” I asked.
He looked away.
“That you needed more time.”
I stared at him.
“For eight years?”
“Every time I thought about telling her, I remembered what she’d say when she found out.”
“So you kept lying.”
Sam nodded.
“And when I tried to reach her?”
“I was afraid she’d tell you what happened at the wedding.”
I stepped back.
“You weren’t protecting either of us, Sam. You were protecting yourself.”
He covered his face.
Vanessa whispered, “What have you done?”
Twenty minutes later, Lily arrived.
She had dark curls and Sam’s brown eyes.
She stood near the entrance, clutching a small wrapped box.
Nobody moved.
Then she looked at me.
“Rachel?”
I nodded.
She glanced at my frosting-stained sleeve.
“What happened?”
“It’s been a terrible evening.”
Her eyes moved toward Sam.
He stood.
“Lily, sweetheart.”
She stepped back.
“Did you tell Rachel I didn’t want to come?”
Sam hesitated.
“Things were complicated.”
Lily laughed.
A small, broken sound.
“You always say that.”
She turned to me.
“Dad said you didn’t want anything to do with me.”
Her voice trembled.
“Was that true?”
I froze.
“I sent you a birthday card every year for the first three years after the wedding.”
I looked at Sam.
I’d bought cards for Lily’s 17th, 18th, and 19th birthdays.
I’d written careful messages.
Never signing them Mom.
Always Rachel.
Sam had offered to deliver them.
Shortly after Lily’s 19th birthday, Sam had come home looking upset.
“Lily asked me to tell you something,” he’d said.
I’d put down the dishes.
“What?”
“She wants you to stop sending things. She says you’re trying to replace her mother.”
Those words had hurt.
She was old enough to decide who she wanted in her life.
Old enough to decide who she wanted in her life.
So I’d stopped.
Not because I didn’t care.
Because I thought leaving her alone was what she wanted.
“Lily,” I whispered, “I gave every one of those cards to your father.”
Her eyes filled.
“I never got them.”
“Your father told me you wanted me to stop contacting you.”
Lily stared at me.
“I never said that.”
“He said you thought I was trying to replace your mother.”
“I didn’t want another mother, Rachel.”
She swallowed.
“I just wanted to know why you didn’t want me.”
Sam reached toward her.
“I was trying to protect you.”
“From birthday cards?”
He lowered his hand.
“I didn’t want more arguments.”
Lily shook her head.
