Lily needed someone. He was here.
Phelps put the pen’s ballpoint to the paper. "Any bad habits? Tendencies you were concerned about?"
"Not really," I said. "He wasn't much of a drinker. A beer with the guys from work maybe, once a month." I paused. "He wasn't his father in that way."
There was one night where I'd seen him drunk, yes. But that wasn't Phelps's to know.
"Did you ever see him be violent?"
"No. Never."
"Temper?"
"Not really. He'd go quiet, when things got hard." I shifted in my seat. "That was more his thing."
Phelps nodded and set her pen down. She looked at the file for a moment, then back at me.
"Dr. Clarke. I'm going to be straight with you." She put her hand flat on the folder. "I have a man here who's been moving from state to state for twelve years. No fixed address, no roots, limited contact with the child. Troubled background." She pursed her lips. "And a misdemeanor too, a bar fight. He apparently stepped in when a woman was being harassed, which tells me something, but… it's still there." She held my gaze. "Ihave a five year old girl who just lost her mother and I have to make a decision about where she goes next."
She sat back.
"You knew him. Long time ago, I understand that. But you knew him." She tilted her head slightly. "Can he do this?"
I opened my mouth, but she continued before I could answer.
"And more importantly," she said. "Should he?"
I looked at the folder on her desk for a moment.
"He got on a plane the same night he got the call," I said. "Went to the medical examiner before he came here. Sat with her until he had to be chased out." I paused. "She's five years old and she gave him the thing she sleeps with. Kids don't do that for strangers."
Phelps waited.
"Can he do it?" I said. "I don't know. Honestly. But should he? She needs someone who knew her mom. Who'll tell her about her when she's older." I looked at Phelps and nodded. "There's nobody else."
Chapter Sixteen
Jack
The key had come in a plastic bag along with the rest of Cassie’s life: phone, wallet, a watch with a cracked face. The nurse had slid it across the desk without looking up. I’d lingered in the corridor for a long time afterward, turning the metal over in my palm until it grew warm, before finally shoving it into my pocket.
That was four hours ago. I hadn’t stopped since: the attorney’s office, the GAL—a woman in a sharp suit who explained she was there to represent Lily’s interests, as if I wasn't—and two phone calls made from the driver’s seat of a rental car because I couldn't stomach the silence of a coffee shop.Assumable.That was the word the attorney used for the mortgage. A clean, clinical word that suggested a simple transition. He’d handed me the forms—there were always more forms—and sent me on my way.
Now, I was idling at the curb on Clement Street. The engine was off. The key was biting into my palm, but I was still just sitting here, staring at the front door.
"Right," I muttered, then finally got out of the car.
The porch had three wooden steps; the middle one gave way with a soft, rotting dip.I’ll fix that,I thought, the first concretetask I’d clung to in days. The key turned without a fight. I stepped inside and the air hit me. It was a heavy, sudden wall of laundry detergent and something faintly floral. It didn't have a name, but it was Cassie. It was the physical ghost a house keeps when the person is ripped out of it. I stayed in the doorway, lungs burning, trying to hold that scent still before my own presence scrubbed it away.
Lily’s backpack was right where she’d dropped it. Pink, one strap unzipped, a plastic water bottle dangling from a cheap carabiner. Two coats hung on the pegs above: a dark green parka and a small purple jacket with some kind of animal embroidered on the pocket. I couldn't tell what it was in the dim light, and I couldn't bring myself to touch it to find out.
I moved further in.
The living room was small and still held the shape of a Tuesday morning. A fleece blanket was slumped over the back of the couch. On the coffee table, a coloring book lay open to a half-finished garden, crayons scattered where they’d rolled. A bookshelf was crammed tight against the far wall, sagging under the weight of paperbacks and a small, dusty TV. It was a dense, quiet life. There didn't seem to be any room left in it for me.
There was a photo tucked between two spines. I almost passed it, then doubled back.
Cassie and me. We were teenagers, maybe fifteen and thirteen, squinting against a harsh summer sun at some forgotten county fair. She had her arm hooked around my neck, grinning at the lens like she’d just won a prize. I wasn't looking at the camera; I was looking at her. I had no memory of the day, or who had been holding the shutter.