Chapter 25 - LILY TURNS TWOLily’s second birthday was in our backyard.
Not a hospital.
Not Patricia’s house.
Not a courtroom.
A yard.
Pink bubbles.
Cupcakes.
A plastic water table.
Rebecca flew in with Sophie.
Daniel grilled hamburgers badly.
I took over before he burned the second batch.
Patricia did not attend.
That was our decision.
She sent a gift through Rebecca.
A wooden shape sorter.
No note asking for forgiveness.
No guilt.
Just:
Happy Birthday, Lily. Love, Patricia.
I almost corrected “Love.”
Then decided Lily was allowed to receive love without owing access in return.
At one point Sophie knocked a cup off the patio table.
It broke.
Not glass.
Plastic.
Still, the sound of it hitting concrete made my body lock.
Two years later.
One stupid cup.
Daniel noticed.
He touched my back.
“Here?”
“Yes.”
That was our shorthand from therapy.
Are you here or back there?
Here.
Mostly.
Lily ran through bubbles.
Laughing.
I watched her forehead.
Her balance.
Her speech.
Her hands.
Every milestone had once felt like evidence in a case against catastrophe.
At two, she was developing normally.
No seizures.
No neurological deficits.
No special services.
Dr. Patel had finally stopped using language that made me hear alarms.
May you like
“She’s a healthy two-year-old.”
I wrote that sentence in Lily’s baby book.
