“I know.”
“And every month you kept deciding.”
“Yes.”
I hated him then. Not forever.
But in that moment, I did.
I went back into the office and picked up a photograph.
Lily was maybe 19.
Dark hair. Brown eyes. Ben’s smile.
On the back: “First day at nursing school.”
I asked, “What’s the perfume?”
Ben’s face changed. “It was hers.”
“Why do you have it?”
“She gave it to me.”
The flamingo perfume came from a childhood box Lily’s adoptive mother had saved.
Lily had laughed because she’d worn too much of it at 13.
She gave it to Ben as a joke.
“She said if I wanted the full father experience, I should have to smell what her parents survived.”
Despite everything, I almost smiled.
I didn’t.
“Why keep all of this locked?”
“Because I was ashamed.”
“Of her?”
“No.”
Immediate.
“Never her.”
“Of me finding out.”
“Yes.”
There it was.
