"A little. But your daddy's very good at keeping people safe. And so are all his friends."
She processes this. Her face is serious. Too serious for a six-year-old.
"I made you something." She holds out the paper. "For good luck. Like the one I made Forest."
I take it. Unfold it carefully.
It's a dinosaur. Purple, like Theodore, but different. This one has numbers spiraling around its body, the multiplication tables, the partner numbers, the patterns she's discovered over the past weeks. And at the end of its tail, where the tip should be, there's a small figure. A person. Holding what looks like a pen.
"That's you." Lily points to the figure. "You're the mathematician. See? Theodore has a mathematician tail now. Because math is armor."
I stare at the drawing. The crayon lines are wobbly. The proportions are wrong. It's the most valuable thing anyone has given me in years.
"Lily." My voice comes out strange. Thick. "This is beautiful."
"Do you like it?"
"I love it."
She beams. Then her face goes serious again.
"You have to come back. Okay? Because I still have more patterns to show you. And Theodore says you're not allowed to die because then who's going to teach me the sneaky numbers? Seven is very sneaky, and I need help figuring him out."
"I'll come back." I fold the paper carefully. Tuck it into my pocket, against my chest. "I promise."
"Pinky promise?"
She holds out her hand. The smallest finger extended.
I hook my pinky around hers. "Pinky promise."
She throws her arms around my waist, careful of my side, somehow, as if someone taught her exactly where the wound is. I wrap my arms around her and hold on.
She smells like children's shampoo and crayons. Something that makes my chest ache in a way that has nothing to do with the bullet hole.
"I love you, Julianna." Lily buries her face in my stomach, her voice muffled by fabric.
I freeze.
Three words.
Three words from a six-year-old who has known me for weeks.
Three words that land somewhere I didn't know I had left.
"I love you too." The words come out before I can stop them. Before I can calculate whether I'm allowed to say them. Before I can wonder what they mean or what they'll cost.
She pulls back. Smiles at me. The smile that has no shadows in it, no calculation, no awareness of all the reasons she shouldn't trust me.
"Okay. Now you have to be brave. And then you have to come back and teach me about seven."
"Deal."
She runs out of the room, Theodore bouncing against her leg. The door swings closed behind her.
I stand in the middle of the bedroom, one hand pressed against the paper in my pocket, and I let myself feel the weight of what just happened.
A child loves me.
