She looked at the photograph for several seconds, then placed it face down on the sideboard rather than throwing it. The restraint seemed to frighten Ryan more than anger would have. Ava turned back toward the table. "Who knew?" "No one," Lily said immediately.
"No friends? No coworkers?" "No." "Mom?" Lily's face changed.
It was slight. A shift in the eyes, a tightening around the mouth. But after twenty-three years, Ava knew exactly what a lie looked like before Lily spoke it. Ava went cold. "Does Mom know?"
"No," Lily said. Too fast. Ava stared at her. Ryan looked toward Lily. That look was enough to reopen every question.
"Does Mom know?" Ava asked again. Lily shook her head, but the motion lacked conviction. "Not everything." Ava felt her pulse in her throat.
"That is not the same as no." "She knows I'm pregnant." Ryan turned toward Lily sharply. "You told her?" Ava's eyes moved to him.
The question sounded less like surprise than alarm, and for the first time since the confession, Ryan seemed frightened by something beyond Ava's anger. He recovered quickly, but not before she saw it. "When?" Ava asked. "Two days ago," Lily said.
"I called her because I was panicking. I didn't tell her who the father was. I couldn't. I just said I was pregnant and that I didn't know what to do." "And what did she say?"
Lily swallowed. "She said I had to tell you whatever I was hiding." Ava almost laughed. "Whatever you were hiding." "She could tell there was more."
"Mom can always tell when there's more." The sentence opened a door into childhood. Ava was suddenly seventeen again, sitting on the edge of Lily's bed while their parents argued downstairs in voices designed to sound quiet. Lily had been thirteen and terrified, asking whether their father was leaving.
Ava had lied and said no because she thought older sisters were supposed to protect younger ones from truths until the truth became unavoidable. Their father left three weeks later. Afterward, Lily slept in Ava's room for nearly a month. Diane worked longer hours because the household had gone from two incomes to one, and Ava learned to make dinner, check homework, drive Lily to dance practice, and recognize the sound of her sister crying through a closed door.
She never called it raising Lily because Diane had been a devoted mother, but there were years when Ava had carried part of the job without anyone formally asking her to. That history sat between the sisters now. "Do you remember when Dad left?" Ava asked. Lily's face tightened.
"Ava, please." "Do you remember what you made me promise?" Lily stared at the table. "You made me promise I wouldn't leave you too." Tears rolled down Lily's face.
Ava's voice trembled, but she did not look away. "You were thirteen. You sat on my floor in that horrible purple sweatshirt you wore every day, and you made me promise that no matter what happened, I'd always be your person." "I remember." "I meant it."
"I know." "No, you don't. Because if you knew what that promise meant to me, you couldn't have done this." Lily covered her face again. "I don't know what you want me to say."