CHAPTER 18: Lily’s New Room
Lily’s new room was too large.
That was her first opinion.
It had tall windows, a white bed, soft blankets, shelves of books, and a small desk with pencils arranged in a cup. Someone had placed a vase of yellow flowers by the window. Someone else had filled the closet with clothes that still had tags on them.
Lily stood in the doorway and did not enter.
Edward waited behind her. “Is something wrong?”
“Where do I put my bag?” she asked.
He looked at the torn cloth pouch in her hands.
“Wherever you want.”
She stepped inside slowly and placed the pouch on the pillow, as if it deserved the bed more than she did. Then she opened the closet and frowned.
“These are too clean.”
Edward smiled sadly. “That can be fixed by living in them.”
That night, she could not sleep. The bed felt like a cloud she might fall through. The silence felt suspicious. She padded down the hallway in borrowed socks until she found Edward sitting in the library beneath a lamp, reading Clara’s letters.
He looked up immediately. “Lily?”
“I’m not used to doors that lock from the inside,” she said.
Edward’s face broke a little.
He moved a blanket onto the couch. “Then tonight, we will keep the library light on.”
Lily curled beneath the blanket while he read aloud from one of Clara’s childhood books. Halfway through, she fell asleep.
Edward kept reading long after she could hear him.
May you like
He was not reading for the child anymore.
He was reading to the daughter he had lost, to the years he could not repair, and to the small breathing proof that love had somehow survived his failure.
