"Want to talk about it?"
A pause. Then: "Not really."
Olivia should have left it there. Should have said goodnight and gone to her own room and dealt with whatever this was in the morning, when she was sober and clearheaded and better equipped for difficult conversations.
But Lily was just sitting there. Waiting.
Olivia crossed to the bed and sat on the edge, leaving space between them. "What's going on?"
Lily didn't answer. Her eyes stayed on the wall.
"I thought maybe it was just being fifteen. Or being away from home." Olivia kept her voice even. "But it's more than that. Isn't it."
Silence.
"What is it?"
"You're going to be upset."
"Maybe. But I'd rather know than wonder."
More silence. Somewhere outside, a car door closed. Footsteps on a neighboring porch, then quiet again.
"It was in January," Lily said at last. "Before you and Dad started acting weird. Before you stopped talking to each other at dinner."
January. A month before Olivia had found the texts.
"I couldn't sleep," Lily continued. "I kept having these dreams about—it doesn't matter. Anyway, I went downstairs to get water, and I heard a car pull up outside."
Olivia's heart had started to beat in a strange, arrhythmic way.
"It was late. Like, two in the morning. I looked out the window because I thought maybe someone was picking something up, or there was an Uber, or—I don't know what I thought."
She stopped. Olivia waited.
"Dad was outside." The words came out flat now, rehearsed, like she'd been waiting to say them. "He walked out to the car. A woman got out. They kissed. For a long time. Like, really kissed. And then they talked for a while, and she got back in her car, and Dad came back inside."
Olivia could feel the beer souring in her stomach.
"I went back to bed," Lily said. "I convinced myself I'd imagined it. Or that it was someone else. Or that I'd been sleepwalking and dreaming the whole thing." She finally looked at Olivia, and her eyes were wet. "But I know what I saw. I've known for months."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because I was scared." Her voice broke. "I was scared that if I said something, you'd get divorced. That everything would fall apart. And I kept thinking maybe I was wrong, maybe I didn't see what I thought I saw, maybe Dad just?—"
"Just what?"
"I don't know." Lily wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "I kept hoping it would go away. That things would get better. That I wouldn't have to say anything."
Olivia didn't move. Everything she'd told herself since February—that Dan had made a mistake, that they could fix it, that she could forgive—was falling apart.
Dan had kissed Rachel.
Physically. Actually. In the middle of the night, in front of their house, while their daughter watched from a window.
He'd looked her in the eye and sworn it was only emotional. Only texts. Nothing physical.
And she'd believed him. She'd wanted to believe him.
