Chapter 10 - The first lie to Lily
Lily was six when she asked:
“When is Mommy coming home?”
Ryan said:
“She may not.”
A painful truth.
Then:
“Is Mommy going to die?”
Ryan answered:
“I don’t know.”
Still truth.
Months later, after Emily developed pneumonia during rehabilitation, Ryan received an emergency call.
She recovered.
Lily heard part of the conversation.
Ryan told her:
“Mommy is very, very sick.”
Then, according to Lily’s therapist notes, three days later she arrived saying:
“Daddy says Mommy is gone now.”
The therapist interpreted gone as:
Emotionally unavailable.
Possibly death.
She asked Ryan.
He said:
“I explained that Emily is no longer part of our day-to-day family because of her condition.”
That was evasive.
Lily understood:
Dead.
Ryan realized she understood dead.
And he did not correct her.
That was the beginning of the lie.
Later he strengthened it.
When Lily asked:
“Can we visit Mommy’s grave?”
Ryan said:
“Mommy didn’t want a grave.”
There.
No ambiguity.
May you like
He had chosen the fiction.
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