Chapter 17 - The House With the Yellow Door
We did not buy a mansion.
Everyone expected us to.
The newspapers certainly did.
By then, my relationship with Sarah had become public despite every attempt to keep our lives private.
People assumed I would move her and Lily into my penthouse.
Sarah lasted four nights there before announcing, “I hate your house.”
“It’s an apartment.”
“I hate your apartment.”
Lily agreed.
“It has no yard.”
“There are parks.”
“That is not a yard.”
So we bought a house.
Not the largest house I could afford.
Not even close.
A four-bedroom Craftsman in Queen Anne with creaky hardwood floors, a fireplace, a small backyard, and a maple tree that dropped leaves everywhere.
The front door was green.
Lily refused to move in until it was yellow.
So we painted it.
Bright yellow.
“Too bright,” I said.
“Perfect,” Sarah replied.
Traitor.
We moved in three months before the wedding.
Separate rooms.
Separate closets.
Sarah insisted.
“Old-fashioned?” I asked.
“Practical.”
“How?”
“If I have to organize a wedding while living with your socks on the floor, there won’t be a wedding.”
Fair.
Lily’s room overlooked the backyard.
She chose stars for the ceiling and a yellow quilt.
Eleven the rabbit received his own basket.
I got a home office.
Sarah got the sunroom.
Then something happened I hadn’t expected.
My father wrote.
Not email.
A real letter.
It arrived at Harbor & Pine.
He apologized again.
More specifically this time.
He admitted Daniel’s investigator had paid him for information.
He admitted he knew it could hurt me.
He admitted greed.
Shame.
Envy.
He wrote:
I was angry that you became everything I failed to become, and instead of being proud, I let that anger turn into another way of abandoning you.
I read that sentence for a long time.
Then put the letter away.
Sarah found me on the back steps that evening.
“You okay?”
“Yes.”
“That means no.”
I handed her the letter.
She read it.
“What do you want to do?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t have to forgive him.”
“I know.”
“You don’t have to see him.”
“I know.”
“You also don’t have to stay angry just because anger kept you safe once.”
I looked at her.
“Where did you learn that?”
“Therapy.”
“Expensive?”
“Your favorite kind.”
I laughed.
Two weeks later, I invited my father for coffee.
Public place.
One hour.
Boundaries.
He arrived thirty minutes early.
I noticed.
People who regret being late sometimes spend the rest of life arriving too soon.
He looked nervous.
We talked.
Not about everything.
Not enough.
But honestly.
At the end, he asked about Lily.
“She sounds remarkable.”
“She is.”
“And Sarah?”
“Also remarkable.”
He smiled.
“You love them.”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad.”
I believed him.
That was new.
Before he left, he placed something on the table.
A baseball ticket.
Mariners.
Dated twenty-eight years earlier.
The game he had promised to take me to.
“I bought two,” he said.
My throat tightened.
“Then why didn’t you come?”
He stared at the ticket.
“I was drinking.”
There it was.
No excuse.
No rewritten history.
“I woke up after the game started.”
I looked away.
“I kept the ticket because I hated myself.”
“You should have called.”
“I know.”
“You could have come Monday.”
“I know.”
“You waited years.”
“I know.”
Anger returned.
But it didn’t own the room anymore.
“I can’t give you back what you missed,” he said.
“No.”
“But if there’s anything left…”
He stopped.
I understood.
“I’ll call you.”
He nodded.
That was all I could offer.
It was enough.
The wedding approached.
Sarah wanted small.
Lily wanted “a castle with horses.”
We compromised on a garden venue overlooking Puget Sound.
Forty guests.
No press.
Nolan threatened bodily harm against anyone who leaked details.
I believed him.
One week before the wedding, our adoption attorney called.
Daniel’s consent documents had been signed.
Final.
After the marriage, we could file.
Sarah cried.
I didn’t.
Until I went upstairs and found Lily asleep with the original sandwich bag under her pillow.
Then I sat on the floor beside her bed and lost it completely.
She woke.
“Why are you crying?”
“Happy leaking.”
She rubbed her eyes.
“That’s Mommy’s thing.”
“I borrowed it.”
She sat up.
“You can keep it.”
“Thanks.”
She pulled the bag out.
“I bought the present.”
I looked at it.
Only a few coins remained.
“How much did you spend?”
“Ten dollars.”
“What did you buy?”
“Secret.”
“Where?”
“With Mommy.”
“Then she knows?”
“Yes.”
“This conspiracy is unacceptable.”
She giggled.
“Go to sleep.”
“You go to sleep.”
“I’m an adult.”
“That means you need more sleep because you’re old.”
I stared at her.
“Good night, Lily.”
“Good night, almost Daddy.”
I stopped at the door.
Almost Daddy.
The words stayed with me.
Two days before the wedding, a letter arrived for Lily.
From Daniel.
The first annual letter.
Sarah and the therapist reviewed it.
No manipulation.
No demands.
Just an apology.
Daniel wrote that he was beginning to understand that being someone’s biological father did not automatically make him entitled to their trust.
He said he hoped one day Lily would forgive him, but that she did not owe him forgiveness.
He thanked her for being brave.
Sarah decided Lily could read it when she was older.
We placed it in the blue box.
Not hidden.
Not destroyed.
Part of her history.
But no longer the thing controlling her future.
The night before the wedding, rain began.
Heavy.
Seattle rain.
Lily stood at the yellow front door looking outside.
“Like the store day.”
I joined her.
“Yes.”
“Were you scared?”
“When?”
“When I came in.”
“I was confused.”
“I was scared.”
“I know.”
She looked up.
“I thought Mommy died.”
My throat tightened.
“But she didn’t.”
“No.”
“And I thought I needed to buy a daddy.”
“You didn’t.”
She smiled.
“I know.”
Lightning flashed over the Sound.
Lily slipped her hand into mine.
“Ethan?”
“Yes?”
“Tomorrow, if Mommy gets scared, you still marry her?”
“Yes.”
“If she cries?”
“Yes.”
“If she says wedding is too much?”
“We’ll take a break.”
“If she gets sick?”
“I’ll take care of her.”
“If she gets old?”
“I hope I get old too.”
Lily nodded.
“Good.”
“What about me?”
She looked confused.
“What?”
“If I get scared?”
“I stay.”
“If I cry?”
“I stay.”
“If I get sick?”
“I stay.”
“If I get old?”
She burst out laughing.
“You’re already old.”
I groaned.
Then she hugged me.
Over her shoulder, the yellow door glowed in the warm hallway light.
A year earlier, she had walked toward another light in the rain because she needed help.
Tomorrow, she would walk down an aisle toward me.
Not to buy a father.
To give her mother away to a man she had somehow found first.
May you like
And neither of us knew she had one final question planned before the ceremony could begin.
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