Chapter 7 - The Father Lily Still Asked For
Lily continued asking for Ryan.
Not constantly.
Not with the aching frequency I feared.
She asked when she saw his coffee mug in a moving box. She asked when a man at the grocery store laughed in the same deep way. She asked one morning when Kate burned toast because Ryan always scraped the black parts off for her.
“Daddy fix toast?”
I turned away from the toaster so she would not see my face.
“Daddy isn’t here today.”
“Tomorrow?”
“Not tomorrow.”
She accepted answers in pieces.
Children sometimes do that better than adults.
I began looking for an apartment.
Kate never asked me to leave, but the one-bedroom space was too small for three people and Lily’s crib took up half her room.
The house Ryan and I rented together felt impossible.
Even thinking about returning there made my shoulders tighten.
Ryan offered to move out permanently so Lily and I could go back.
I declined.
“You don’t have to give up the house,” Kate said.
“I know.”
“Then why are you?”
“Because I want one decision that isn’t about getting something back from him.”
I found a modest two-bedroom apartment near Lily’s daycare.
The carpet was cheap. The kitchen cabinets were older than I was. The second bedroom faced a parking lot instead of a yard.
I loved it immediately.
The doors opened from the inside.
All of them.
During Lily’s second supervised visit, Ryan brought no toys.
He sat on the floor and let her choose what they did.
For fifteen minutes she made plastic animals eat imaginary soup.
Every time the lion finished, she put him in a toy closet and shut the little door.
Ryan’s face tightened.
The supervisor noticed too.
“Should we redirect?” he asked.
“No,” she said. “Follow her lead unless she becomes distressed.”
Lily put the lion in the closet again.
Ryan reached for the toy door.
Then stopped himself.
“Can Lion come out?” he asked.
Lily shook her head.
“Why not?”
“Bad lion.”
Ryan swallowed.
“What did Lion do?”
Lily banged the plastic lion against the table.
“Food down.”
I was watching from the observation room with Denise.
My stomach clenched.
Ryan looked toward the camera.
He knew I was somewhere behind it.
Then he looked back at Lily.
“Sometimes food falls down,” he said.
“Bad?”
“No.”
Lily stared at him.
Ryan’s voice cracked.
“Not bad.”
She opened the toy closet.
The visit ended ten minutes early because Ryan asked for a break.
In the hallway afterward, he sat with his elbows on his knees and cried.
The supervisor offered tissues.
He shook his head.
“I’m fine.”
Then he corrected himself.
“No. I’m not fine.”
That mattered more than the tears.
Later that week, we had our first joint meeting with the family-services coordinator.
The goal was not reconciliation.
It was a parenting plan while the investigation continued.
Ryan requested weekly supervised visits and daily video calls if Lily wanted them.
I agreed to the visits and refused daily calls.
“Why?” he asked.
“Because she shouldn’t have to manage your need to see her every day.”
“I said if she wants them.”
“She is two. If you call, she will think she has to answer.”
The coordinator nodded.
“One scheduled call a week may be more predictable.”
Ryan accepted it.
I expected relief.
Instead I felt furious.
It was easier when he resisted everything.
His cooperation created uncertainty.
If he had remained defensive, I could have put him in one box: unsafe.
Now he was doing some things right after doing something terribly wrong.
I did not know what to do with that.
At home, Lily helped me unpack the new apartment.
She carried washcloths one at a time from a box to the bathroom.
When she reached the pantry, she stopped.
“Mine?” she asked.
“The crackers?”
She nodded.
“All of them are for our family.”
“Mine?”
“You can have some whenever you’re hungry.”
She stared at the shelves.
I put a basket of snacks on the lowest shelf where she could reach it.
“See? This basket is Lily’s.”
Her eyes widened.
For the rest of the afternoon, she checked the basket every twenty minutes.
She did not take anything.
She just looked.
That evening, I found one fruit pouch tucked behind the couch.
I left it there until morning.
At seven, Ryan called for the scheduled video chat.
Lily ran to the phone.
“Daddy! New house!”
Ryan smiled.
“Wow. Do you have your own room?”
Lily nodded vigorously.
“Door opens,” she announced.
Ryan’s smile disappeared.
I almost ended the call.
Then he said, “Good.”
Just that.
Good.
Lily showed him the rabbit, the pantry basket, and the bathroom stool.
When the call ended, she kissed the screen and ran away.
Ryan stayed visible for a second longer.
“Megan.”
“What?”
“I told the prosecutor I’ll testify if they need me.”
“Against your mother?”
“Yes.”
“You know what that means.”
“My family will hate me.”
“Some of them already hate me.”
“I know.”
He looked down.
“I’m not doing it for you.”
That was the first useful thing he had said about it.
The following week, he sent me the name of the therapist he was seeing and the parenting course schedule. He did not ask me to call them. He did not ask me to verify anything.
"Why are you sending this?" I texted.
So you know where I am every Tuesday night if it ever affects pickup later.
I stared at the message, surprised by how ordinary accountability could look when nobody was performing it for applause.
I saved the information in Lily's shared calendar and did not thank him.
He did not ask me to.
A month earlier, that silence would have felt hostile. Now it felt like room.
Two days later, Lily had a nightmare and woke screaming, "Open, open." I found her standing in the hallway, not trapped anywhere, just terrified by the memory of a closed door. I sat on the floor until her breathing slowed. In the morning I added one more thing to the shared parenting notes Ryan could see: no closed bedroom doors during naps unless Lily asks. He replied with one word.
May you like
Understood.
That was enough.
