But she knew exactly what. Her husband’s case was still unresolved. He was unresolved.
She stared straight ahead, teeth grinding until her jaw ached. Had Detective Mendelson meant he would come tonight? Tomorrow? She registered a shadow from the corner of her eye and whipped around to see Everett’s head poking past the door of the office. He watched her, a shallow frown marring his forehead.
“Ev! I didn’t see you there!”
He took her in for a long moment before silently retreating back to the apartment. Lily frantically reviewed her side of the conversation. She hadn’t mentioned Jones but she’d obviously been talking about him.
She didn’t speak of him with Everett. Not that she wouldn’t if he asked, but because she couldn’t bring herself to broach the topic. She’d lied to her son over and over, and the guilt of it burned through her. He’d find out someday. She knew that. He’d find out that his dad had been in touch and she hadn’t told him.
She’d been sure she was doing the right thing when he was nine, but now she didn’t know. Now it felt wrong, like she’d taken something from him, when it had been Jones who’d taken everything. Jones who’d abandoned them so he wouldn’t have to go to prison. Jones who hadn’t sent a card or letter for two years and thought he could just drop back into a child’s heart with no obligation, no commitment.
Lily swallowed hard several times, choking down her alarm and grief.
She had nothing to offer that cop about Jones. Nothing that he could know about at least, so she had nothing to fear. And if Everett wanted to talk about his dad, she’d keep up her charade.
Pasting a smile on her face, she walked stiffly back into the apartment. “Should I make those cookies now?” she asked, hoping a treat would distract them, but Josephine groaned.
“My mom already texted that she’d be here in ten minutes. No cookies for me, I guess.”
Lily busied herself with cleaning up the already clean kitchen while the kids sat tight together on the couch, watching another video on Josephine’s phone. One more thing to feel guilty about. Everett just wanted to watch YouTube videos and follow his friends on Snapchat like all the other kids. But he wasn’t like all the other kids.
What if his father found him and pulled him into his twisted world of secrets and crime and lies? Jones was so goddamn charming. He lied like other people breathed.
But Everett’s thirteenth birthday loomed before her, only three months away now, and she’d promised he could finally buy a phone. Then he’d have access to the world, and the world—and maybe his father—would have access to him.
“She’s here!” Josephine chirped suddenly, and Lily tossed aside her towel to walk her out.
Barbara was parked outside the gate, and she rolled down her window as they approached. “I like your home security!” she called.
“Thanks! It’s a nice benefit to the job.” They shook hands and chatted for a while until Barbara finally waved goodbye.
“Thank you so much for letting Josephine come over.”
“It’s my pleasure. We get a little lonely way out here.”
Lily waved as they pulled away, but her hand paused in midair as she registered another vehicle behind Barbara’s. It wasn’t on the road but parked across the street in front of the plumbing supply place. Maybe somebody broke down and left their ride. Or perhaps an employee got picked up by a friend for the night.
Lily stared hard, watching for any sign of movement, but the store lights were off, and she couldn’t see anything but the shape of a dark SUV. “Shit,” she cursed. Detective Mendelson had made her paranoid. A vehicle might have been parked there once or twice a week for the past six months and she wouldn’t have noticed until now.
“I need a drink,” she muttered, thinking of the red wine she’d stashed under her bed. She didn’t particularly like red, but it didn’t need refrigeration, and she didn’t want to leave alcohol in the kitchen for her son to experiment with. She tried to protect him in every way she could, reading all the pamphlets the school sent home about alcohol, drugs, depression.
Don’t keep alcohol in the house. Don’t drink in front of your kids. Set a good impression. Hide your wine in your bedroom like the pitiful parent you are.
Lily huffed out a bitter laugh. When she’d met Jones, she’d never even tasted wine, and she still had yet to taste the good stuff. Her bottles were eight dollars max, and most were closer to six, and being at room temperature didn’t help the quality.
God, it felt like a movie she’d watched once, that brief moment of her life she’d spent in a beautiful two-story house with a nuclear family on a reasonable budget. They’d been planning a trip to Disney World. She would’ve seen the ocean on that trip. She would have insisted on it.
She’d had wine by then, of course. She’d even had a martini at a neighborhood party, though she hadn’t liked it. If everything had gone as planned, she would have been an established neighborhood organizer by now, volunteering for the PTA and maybe working in the school office for a few hours, with Everett already in middle school. Or maybe they would have had more kids.
She winced away from the idea of what might have become of her if Jones had gotten away with his crimes for another year or two. They’d been halfway through finishing the basement, anticipating the space they might need once Everett had a little brother or sister. She would’ve had another child. A baby to take care of in addition to a young boy. She didn’t want to think about how much more hopeless she would have felt.
Lily glanced at the glass door, hesitating before she went back in. But she couldn’t hide outside forever, wondering what the hell her ex-husband’s crimes had dragged to her doorstep this time.
“Homework hour for both of us,” she declared once she was back inside and locked up tight behind two doors. To keep the peace, she ignored the window he’d closed on the desktop when she’d walked in. At least he got out his backpack without arguing with her, and he retreated to the couch so she could work on an online assignment.
He seemed entirely back to normal. “I really like Josephine,” she tried, testing the waters of his mood.
“Yeah. She’s cool.” He didn’t seem inclined to offer more, so she dropped it. She knew there was no chance it was a romantic involvement, since he’d blurted out at age ten that he liked boys and not girls. He’d been clear on it since then, so what more could she ask about Josephine? It’s not like he would volunteer answers anyway.
She was too strict to be one of those moms who got treated as a best friend. That was what she’d chosen, but she did occasionally yearn for adolescent giggles and whispered tales. Hell, she’d barely left those behind when she’d had him at age twenty.
When an alert buzzed on her cellphone, Lily looked up from her work to find that Everett had retreated to his room and she was all alone. A glance at her phone revealed that it was five minutes to eight, and her gate alarm was ringing.
Mendelson. Heart hammering, hands shaking, she lurched to her feet and raced to the office. When she glanced at the security feed, she was sure it was him, appearing just as promised. A white man leaned out the open window of an SUV to push the buzzer again. A second glance revealed that he looked nothing like the detective. This man’s hair was shaggy and brown, not blond. Just a stranger here to give her a heart attack.
She glared as she turned on her microphone. “Can I help you, sir?”
“Oh hi!” he said, his eyes flashing up to the camera. “I’m here working on my uncle’s storage unit. I misplaced the note with his gate code on it, so I was hoping you could buzz me in?”
“Sorry, sir, I can’t open the gate without the code. You’ll have to call him.”
“I just tried. He didn’t pick up.”