“He asked how I felt about you.”
“And?”
“I told him I wanted you to keep staying.”
She paused.
“I told Dad I wanted you.”
Then she smiled faintly.
“And he said he wanted you too.”
I covered my mouth.
Something inside me loosened.
I had been terrified that Daniel had selected me because I was a grieving mother with an empty place in my life.
But that wasn’t what happened.
Lily had begun choosing me long before Daniel’s secret connected our pasts.
And I had been choosing her too.
Every braid.
Every spelling test.
Every granola bar.
Every nightmare.
Every ordinary afternoon.
Daniel’s secret had existed beside our relationship.
But it hadn’t created it.
I did not forgive him that day.
He had kept Mr. Bunny hidden for years.
He married me without telling me the truth.
And then he left his six-year-old daughter to deliver a secret he had been too afraid to tell himself.
I was still angry.
But I no longer believed Lily had been handed to me as some replacement for Josie.
She chose me first.
And I chose her every day afterward.
We sat together on the kitchen floor until the soup went cold.
Eventually, Lily reached toward Mr. Bunny.
She touched his crooked ear.
“Who does he belong to?”
I took a breath.
“His name is Mr. Bunny.”
I looked down at him.
“He belonged to my daughter.”
“I know you had a daughter.”
Lily spoke carefully.
“But I never knew her name.”
“Josie.”
Lily whispered it.
“Josie.”
Then I told her about my little girl.
How Josie sang terribly in the car.
How she carried Mr. Bunny everywhere.
How she refused to eat anything green unless Mr. Bunny “tried it first.”
Lily leaned against my shoulder and listened.
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