Part 4: Lily Had Been Listening
The unicorn backpack.
I had bought it at Target on a Tuesday night after Lily’s first one ripped open in the school parking lot and dumped two folders, a banana, and a library book called Volcanoes Are Not Polite into a puddle.
It had a fluffy horn.
Pink straps.
Too much glitter.
Jessica had always joked that she wanted one just like it.
Apparently, when she left my house with my money and my SUV, she also took my child’s backpack because it had a built-in charger pocket and she thought nobody would notice.
I noticed then.
Too late.
“Lily,” I said, “what did you do?”
She pressed her lips together.
That is Lily’s guilty face. She gets it from me. My ex-husband used to say we both looked like librarians hiding a body.
“I knew Aunt Jessica was doing bad stuff,” she said.
Jessica screamed, “She’s lying.”
Lily flinched at the sound, but she didn’t stop.
“She asked me for the code from your phone when you were in Chicago,” Lily said. “The one that pops up and says numbers. I told her I didn’t know it.”
My stomach turned.
Two-factor authentication.
Jessica hadn’t just used the password.
She had tried to use Lily.
“Then Ethan said I was stupid,” Lily continued, looking at the robot instead of me. “So I went to my room.”
I wanted to reach for her.
I didn’t.
Some kids stop talking if you touch them too soon.
“But I left my tablet recording.”
My sister went silent.
I could hear her breathing through the borrowed phone.
“Lily,” I said.
“It was for science club,” she said fast, like that helped. “We were seeing what Peanut does when nobody’s looking.”
Peanut opened one eye at the sound of his name and went back to sleep because he is a loaf of bread with legs.
“And then I heard them talking.”
“What did they say?”
Lily swallowed.
Her eyes flicked to the phone.
“Bad words.”
“Okay.”
“And Aunt Jessica said you wouldn’t even notice until Monday because you trust everybody. And Ethan said if you called the bank too soon, they could still reverse it, so they had to move it again.”
I put one hand over my mouth.
Not because I was crying.
Because I was going to make a sound I didn’t want Lily to hear.
Jessica whispered, “I didn’t mean it like that.”
Lily looked at the phone.
“You laughed.”
Two words.
May you like
Small room.
Big damage.
