Lila called him Daniel from day one, and somehow that made me trust him more. With Daniel there, I breathed differently. For the first time in years, I signed up to finish the sewing courses I’d abandoned after Lila was born.
I even bought myself a green wrap dress that skimmed my hips just right and made my waist look like it had remembered its manners. When I stepped out wearing it one night, Daniel looked up from the sink and blinked. I put a hand on my hip.
“Careful. This is a lot of woman in one dress.”
He smiled at me like I was the best thing he’d seen all week. “Seems to me the dress is doing fine.
It’s the rest of us who need to catch up.”
I should have known then not to get too comfortable. Because when life has taught you to expect the floor to give way, one strange moment is all it takes to feel it shaking again. ***
It happened on an ordinary evening.
Dinner was almost ready. I was walking down the hall to call Lila to the table when I heard Daniel’s voice coming from her room. Then one sentence stopped me cold.
“Okay… okay… okay…” I whispered under my breath. The door to Lila’s room was slightly open. Just enough to see.
Daniel reached into his wallet and pulled out a crisp hundred-dollar bill. “I mean it. Take this and keep it a secret.”
Lila frowned a little.
“Daniel… I don’t—”
“It’s nothing bad,” he said quickly. “I promise. I just need you to trust me on this.”
Trust.
That word didn’t sit right. “…Okay,” Lila said quietly. I quickly stepped back before the floor could creak under my weight and walked to the kitchen.
Dinner that night felt like one of those polite small-town potlucks where everybody smiles, and nobody says what they’re really thinking. Daniel talked about work. Lila mentioned a test at school.
I stirred the pasta. Lila barely met my eyes. And when she did, it was quick.
Okay… okay… okay…
I told myself I’d ask her later. Just the two of us. I definitely didn’t want to corner Lila while Daniel was still in the house.
Not make her choose sides. So I waited. The next morning, Daniel left early for a two-day business trip.
Lila left for school not long after. The house went quiet. I stood there with my coffee, staring at nothing, replaying Daniel’s voice in my head.
Take this and keep it a secret. All day, I tried to make sense of it.
