A Lily in the Light(84)
“I wonder if she wears the same dress every year,” Lily said. The queen sipped from a Coors Light can.
Her parents watched from the blanket, waiting like they would have when they were young.
“We could find out,” Madeline said, chasing a ripple with her toe. “We could come back next year.”
Next year, there’d be a new little baby here too. Esme smiled at the secret.
She nodded and turned back toward the water. Kids would play for hours, until just before the sun went down, pretending they weren’t nearly as cold as their shriveled fingers and toes would suggest, running into sun-warmed towels when their parents called them home.
“Who won?” Nick called to the queen.
She threw her head back and laughed. “Who knows? Everyone thinks they’re the first one up. Better that way.”
Esme found a place in the sun beside Lily. They sat quietly for a long time, watching the gentle waves and listening to children laughing. Esme wished she could go back to her childhood bedroom and lift Lily to the bed, holding her under her arms so she could trace the thick cables on the Golden Gate Bridge and imagine that fog tasted like marshmallows or Lucky Charms.
But Lily was too big for that now. She was twelve, tightrope walking the line between her past and future, trying not to fall. How much of Esme’s twelve-year-old life had felt that way? And yet she’d always known who she was. She wanted to put her arm around Lily’s shoulders but didn’t. They watched the water together. Little sister, Esme thought, filled with wonder. This is my sister.
She would call Paul. She would accept his offer and move to Boston. Then she’d buy bowls of New England clam chowder and take long walks along the Charles with Adam. She would have an extra bed for Lily if she wanted to come for the weekend, and Esme would buy every kind of curly-hair shampoo so Lily could try them all, and she’d buy every fruit in the supermarket for Lily too. She didn’t want there to be anything Lily might need, anything she might not know to ask for. She wanted Lily to feel welcome. They could try everything until Lily knew what she liked. She’d help Lily paint the room she used to share with Madeline any way she wanted. They’d rip down all the old posters and all the old stuff until it was Lily’s room, officially. And Esme would get ballet tickets so Lily could see shows, if she wanted, and they could talk about the ones she’d already seen until things were easy between them again. She would be close to Lily, to Adam, her parents and Nick, Madeline and the baby, and she couldn’t imagine it any other way.
“Hey, Dibble Queen!” a little girl shouted from the platform. Water dripped down her skinny legs and pooled around her feet. “You chicken?”
The queen straightened to full height and put one hand on her hip. “You know I’m not.”
“Then jump!” the little girl yelled, her voice bending and tumbling through wind and water.
“Jump!” Nick called. “Jump! Jump! Jump!” A chorus of dripping children blended with the call of birds above and the hum of cars behind them as the queen, gown and all, joined them in the water. Lily smiled at the tulle lily pad floating on the surface, ribbons streaming. Esme tried to see the world as Lily saw it: new and breathing in every shade of sunlight.
Chapter Twenty-Two
An anonymous someone donated two weeks at the reunification program of their choice. It would be two weeks in a new place, with therapists teaching them techniques to use when there were too many feelings or too much tension, easing them back into the life they should’ve had. It would be a break from the phone calls from reporters, from writers offering to author Lily’s biography about her life in captivity. They hired a spokesperson to tell people repeatedly that they were thrilled to have their daughter back and would appreciate peace and privacy.
They decided on an equine therapy ranch in New Mexico because Lily liked the idea of horses. Before leaving, Cerise spun through every convenience store at least once per day because Lily might need Dramamine for the flight, and she’d definitely need sunscreen when they were outside. She was so fair. Or antacids in case the food didn’t agree with her and electrolyte tabs in case the heat was too much or aloe vera in case the sunscreen wore off too soon, calamine lotion in case she touched something she wasn’t used to, and bug spray because didn’t horses carry ticks?
“Mom,” Madeline whined after the fourth trip, “they said to only bring clothes and toiletries. They have everything else.”
“Yes, but what is everything? They can’t have everything.”
“It’s a miracle she hasn’t bought rattlesnake antivenin yet,” Madeline mumbled.
“Only because she didn’t think of it,” Esme whispered back.
Cerise hadn’t gone away in years. She folded and refolded clothes before putting them into the suitcase, switched sleeveless shirts for Tshirts, sweatshirts for jackets, and reread the packing list again and again. It was hopeless: preparing for something nothing could prepare them for, not really, so they let her spin in and out of the house with plastic shopping bags and send Andre to the grocery store for snacks in case Lily didn’t like the food until there was no room left in the suitcases and no time left to shop.
Cerise looked relieved to finally leave her suitcase on the baggage scale at the airport and close her eyes on the flight. They were flying together, except for Lily, who’d flown ahead earlier with her therapist to start one-on-one work before everyone else arrived. Her parents had driven Lily to the airport and guided her through the maze of terminals, promising Lily they’d be there soon. As Lily had slung her new backpack over her shoulder and tightened the straps, Esme had wondered if her strange new family was any comfort for someone who’d spent most of her life alone. Lily didn’t always answer to Lily. Watching Cerise shape the name Liz on her tongue was a reminder of everything they were up against. As hard as it had been to put Lily on that flight alone, she was sure there was relief too.