“Because wanting someone and being able to show up for them aren’t the same thing.”
“That isn’t what I asked.”
She sounded so much like me that it hurt.
“Did he try to see me?”
I hesitated.
That was enough.
“Oh my God.”
“Lily.”
“Did he?”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
“I don’t know.”
“You do know.”
“I don’t know exactly.”
“Did you stop him?”
I could have softened it.
I could have explained first.
For once, I didn’t.
“Yes.”
She covered her mouth.
Noah looked away.
“Why?”
“Our marriage was awful at the end.”
“So?”
“He missed visits.”
“So?”
“He moved to Pittsburgh for work.”
“So?”
“I didn’t trust him to be consistent.”
“And?”
The word came out almost as a scream.
I started crying.
“I was angry.”
There.
The ugliest truth.
Not the whole truth.
But the part I had avoided most.
“I was angry that he got to leave and start over while I stayed here with a toddler and bills and a life that had fallen apart.”
Lily stared at me.
“When he came back wanting weekends, I thought he was doing it because his parents were pressuring him.”
“Was he?”
“Maybe at first.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“I don’t know.”
She wiped her cheeks furiously.
“I told myself you were too young to handle him coming and going.”
“So you decided no dad was better than an imperfect one.”
“Yes.”
Her face collapsed.
“And then?”
I knew exactly what she meant.
The first years might be explainable.
What about the rest?
“He kept trying.”
I sat down.
“Less often as time passed.”
“Because you stopped him?”
“Partly.”
“How?”
I forced myself to answer.
“I changed your preschool without telling him.”
Noah closed his eyes.
“I didn’t give him our new address for almost a year.”
Lily stared.
“I screened his calls.”
“Mom.”
“I returned some letters.”
