“What do you mean?”
“Like there’s a shape beside me where someone is supposed to be.”
I swallowed.
“Yes.”
“It doesn’t hurt exactly,” she said. “It’s just part of me.”
I told her,
“She’s still in you.”
Lily nodded.
“I know.”
Eventually, we arrived.
Carl was sitting in the garden.
He had a book in his lap.
He was not reading.
He was simply sitting in the afternoon sunlight.
Then he saw us.
He did not stand.
Later, I understood that standing had become something requiring planning.
But his face changed.
That was enough.
Lily walked toward him first.
Directly.
No hesitation.
She stopped in front of her father.
A man she had not seen since she was five.
“Hi.”
Carl looked up.
“Hi.”
Then Lily gave him the information she knew mattered most.
“I was tested.”
Carl stopped breathing.
“I’m clear. I don’t have the defect.”
