I finish applying mascara. The memory surfaces unbidden: Jack standing behind me in our old bathroom, watching me get ready, critiquing the angle of my eyeliner, the shade of my lipstick, the way my dress fit.
"You'd be pretty if you tried harder, Kris."
I set down the mascara wand.
That voice doesn't have power anymore. Not after Nico looked at me like I was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen. Not after he touched me like my body was something to worship rather than fix.
Stop. You're going to see your mother. Focus.
"Found them!" Lily announces triumphantly, appearing in the doorway with one purple sneaker held aloft like a trophy. "They were under Sir Floppington."
"Of course they were. Sir Floppington is a notorious shoe thief."
She giggles.
We're visiting my mother today. The woman who raised me alone after my father left and never complained, never asked for help, never let me see her cry.
I don't know how to feel about it.
Lily tugs on my shirt. "Is the big scary man taking us?"
"Liam? He's not scary, baby."
She considers this with the gravity only a four-year-old can muster. "He doesn't smile."
"Some people just have serious faces."
"Nico has a serious face too. But he smiled at me yesterday."
My heart does something complicated. "Did he?"
"Uh-huh. When I showed him my drawing of Bunbun riding a dinosaur. He said it was..." She scrunches her nose, trying to remember. "'Anatomically improbable but creatively impressive.'"
I laugh despite myself. That sounds exactly like Nico.
God, what am I doing?
The question hits me as I help Lily into her second shoe. I'm sleeping with a man who uses words like "anatomically improbable" with a four-year-old. A man who runs construction for a crime family.
And somehow, impossibly, my daughter likes him.
She likes him because he doesn't lie to her. Because he talks to her like she's a person, not a prop.
Unlike Jack. Jack who used Lily as a weapon.
I shake off the thought and grab my purse. "Ready?"
"Ready!"
We find Liam waiting in the foyer. He's exactly as Lily described—serious face, eyes that scan our surroundings even though we're inside the compound. His suit is immaculate. His presence is both reassuring and slightly terrifying.
"Mrs. Thomas." He nods once.
"Just Kristen is fine."
He looks at me. "Kristen. The car is ready."
As we walk toward the garage, I think about my mother.
