She had climbed out.
My sixteen-year-old daughter, who still said “Mom, are we out of milk?” in the same voice she’d used at six, had climbed out of a window.
I don’t remember going downstairs. I only remember the kitchen and the two people sitting at my table. They looked up at me like they had been waiting for exactly this.
She had climbed out.
“You were right,” I said. My voice didn’t sound like mine. “She’s going to do it.”
***
Two days earlier, I would have sworn I knew everything about my daughter.
My husband, Daniel, died two years ago. It was sudden. After that, it was just me and Lily.
I couldn’t give her everything. We stopped taking summer trips. I picked up extra shifts at the dental office. But I made sure she never doubted she was loved.
Every night I stood in her doorway and said, “I love you, kiddo.”
Every night she rolled her eyes and said it back.
Two days earlier, I would have sworn I knew everything about my daughter.
Lily loved to sew. She started at eleven, on a secondhand machine Daniel found at an estate sale. By sixteen, she was making things I couldn’t believe came out of my kid.
