She didn’t answer right away. She picked at a thread on her pajama pants.
“Lily. Why not?”
“Because of how you get,” she said quietly.
“How I get?”
“About Dad.” She finally looked up. “You still sleep on his side of the bed sometimes. You still have his voicemail saved on your phone. You listen to it when you think I’m asleep. I can hear it through the wall.”
I felt my face get hot.
“You talk about him like he was perfect, Mom. Like the best husband in the world. Every time we drive past the coffee place he liked, you say, ‘Your dad loved that place,’ and your voice gets all soft. I didn’t want to… I didn’t want to take that away from you.” She wiped her eyes. “You already lost him once. I didn’t want you to lose him twice.”
Me senté en el suelo. Justo ahí en el pasillo delantero, en la baldosa fría.
“Así que lo llevaste,” dije. “Por ti mismo. Durante dos meses”.
“Te lo iba a decir. Seguí esperando el momento adecuado. No había uno”.
“Encontraste una caja en el garaje que decía que tu padre tenía otro hijo, y tú simplemente... lo devolviste y fuiste a la escuela al día siguiente”.
“No lo devolví. Lo guardé debajo de mi cama”.
“Lily.”
“I’d take the pictures out at night,” she said. “And look at them. Annie at the zoo. Annie with a missing tooth. Annie in a Halloween costume. She was a bumblebee when she was five.” Her voice got very small. “He wrote on the back of every single one. In his handwriting. I’d look at his handwriting and think, he loved her. He loved her too. He just never told anybody.”
“And that made you want to sew her a dress.”
– No -dijo ella. “Eso me hizo querer vomitar. Por una semana como una.” Casi se ríe. “Entonces la vi en la escuela. Sentada sola en el almuerzo. Con Trevor llamando a su buena voluntad. Llevar la misma chaqueta todos los días. Y pensé, ella es mi hermana. Esa es mi hermana. Y ella ni siquiera lo sabe. Y no tiene nada. Y lo tenía. Tuve fiestas de cumpleaños y Navidad y él me enseñó a andar en bicicleta. Tenía un helado al año con un tipo al que llamaba tío Mike”.
