Nothing more.
Daniel hired her the next day.
Every morning he drove Lily to school.
Then forty-five minutes into Portland.
At Arcturus, Daniel became very good at appearing functional.
He attended meetings.
Solved problems.
Delivered projects.
Answered emails.
Smiled when required.
When people asked how he was doing, he learned to say, “We’re managing.”
It was technically true.
He simply did not explain how much management it took.
Miss Holloway, Lily’s second-grade teacher, emailed him every Friday.
Lily painted today. She chose blue.
Lily sat with the reading group for eleven minutes.
Lily smiled when Theo dropped his pencil cup.
Lily completed the math sheet without assistance.
Lily did not participate in music today. We did not push.
Daniel saved every email.
They became measurements of a progress that could not be graphed.
At night, he sat at the kitchen table after Lily slept.
Claire’s chair remained angled slightly away from the table the way she always left it.
For months Daniel could not bring himself to push it in.
He drank tea that went cold.
He calculated.
How long could he maintain his current schedule?
Could he reduce hours?
Could they sell the house?
Would changing schools make things worse?
Would changing nothing make things worse?
How much of Lily’s silence was grief?
How much was fear?
How much came from watching her father disappear every morning into a place she could not understand?
Daniel had no answers.
He knew only that a distance had opened between the father he was and the father Lily appeared to need.
He kept trying to cross it in fifteen-minute increments.
Breakfast.
Drive to school.
Dinner.
Bath.
Bedtime.
Weekend therapy.
Sunday pancakes.
It never felt sufficient.
Lily drew constantly.
That part of her remained.
Paper accumulated everywhere.
Animals.
Trees.
Clouds.
Houses.