Chapter 17 - Lily’s Empty Chair
When Lily was seventeen, she received acceptance letters from four universities.
Gabriel wanted the safest.
Sophie wanted Lily to choose.
Lily wanted Chicago.
“Why?” Gabriel asked.
“Because my work is here.”
“You're seventeen.”
“Almost eighteen.”
“Which is seventeen.”
Sophie intervened.
“She gets to choose.”
Gabriel hated that sentence.
Mostly because Sophie had taught it to him.
Lily chose Northwestern.
She studied public policy and food systems.
On her first day, Gabriel attempted to accompany her inside.
Lily stopped him.
“Dad.”
Gabriel froze.
She had called him Gabriel for years when she was younger.
Dad had come gradually.
Naturally.
But it still affected him every time.
“Yes?”
“You cannot walk me to class.”
“Why?”
“Because you're wearing a suit and two security people are pretending not to follow us.”
“They're very discreet.”
“One is six-foot-five.”
Gabriel looked toward the enormous man.
“Fair.”
Lily hugged him.
“I'll be okay.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“No.”
She laughed.
Sophie took his hand as Lily walked away.
That evening, Lily's chair at dinner was empty.
Gabriel stared at it.
Sophie noticed.
“You miss her.”
“No.”
“Gabriel.”
“Yes.”
Their son rolled his eyes.
“She's thirty minutes away.”
“That is irrelevant.”
Sophie smiled.
The man who once believed attachment created vulnerability had become a father who complained his daughter lived thirty minutes away.
Life had a sense of humor.
Then Lily texted.
DINING HALL THROWS AWAY EVERYTHING AT 9. WORKING ON IT.
Gabriel showed Sophie.
She laughed.
“Of course she is.”
Within three months, Lily had established a campus food recovery network.
She did not use Gabriel's name.
She did not use Sophie's.
She built it herself.
At the opening, Gabriel stood in the back.
Exactly where he had stood years earlier when Sophie addressed donors.
Lily placed the first meal inside a refrigerator.
Then taped up a handwritten note.
LONG NIGHT. EAT SOMETHING.
Gabriel had to look away.
Sophie squeezed his hand.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good.”
He laughed.
May you like
And they watched their daughter continue what had begun before she was old enough to understand how unusual her mother really was.
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