The bedroom was too quiet without Trina in it. Lizanne had expected relief. Clean lines, reclaimed space, the decision made and done with. What she hadn’t anticipated was standing in front of Trina’s side of the wardrobe at seven in the morning, feeling the silence settle into the room like it had always lived there and was only now making itself known.
She stripped the side table. She moved the spare reading lamp to the far end of the room where it would throw light on a face that didn’t exist in this space yet. She stood back and looked at the result and it looked precisely like what it was.
Pat had spoken to Rose already. Lizanne hadn’t asked her to, which meant Pat was running on instinct, which meant Pat was doing her job, which was the only reliable constant in Lizanne’s life at the moment.
The knock came at just past nine.
“Come in.”
Rose entered with a cardboard box and stopped just inside the door. She took in the room the way she took in every space.
“Pat said.” She paused. “She said I should make it more—” Another pause. “She used the word ours.”
“She would,” Lizanne said. “They’ll film in here, so it needs to…”
“Look like I live here. I know.”
Rose set the box on the bed and started unpacking. A small alarm clock. A water glass with a weighted base. A tube of hand cream. Then a book, large, dark-spined, the cover worn soft and the spine cracked in several places. Lizanne crossed the room before she’d decided to.
The Atlas of the Night Sky.
“My father’s,” Rose said, still unpacking. “He liked to know where things were. Even things you couldn’t touch.” She set a folded scarf on the bed. “I’ve read it enough times I could probably recite it. I still take it everywhere.”
Lizanne set it on the side table. Carefully, not casually.
Rose produced two photographs in plain frames and placed them beside the book. The first was a man — dark-haired, mid-laugh in a garden. Her father. Lizanne knew it without asking. The second was Daisy, mid-run in what looked like a park, face turned toward the camera with the total unselfconsciousness of a child who hadn’t yet learned to perform for a lens.
“I want to be straightforward with you. I’m not good with children. I don’t have a natural register for them. I’m not going to pretend otherwise.”
“I know,” Rose said. No edge to it, which Lizanne appreciated more than she expected to.
“Does she like the playroom? I wasn’t certain what she’d want.”
“So you got her everything?” Rose smiled. “She loves it, and she’ll want three more things by Friday.”
“Then she’ll have them.”
Rose set down the box. “Lizanne.”
“It’s not a problem—”
“I’m not going to let you parent my daughter. Or spoil her.” No heat in it, but no flexibility either. “I appreciate the playroom. But Daisy’s rules, her discipline, her decisions … that’s mine. It stays mine. That includes what toys she gets, from now on.”
Lizanne raised both hands. “All right.”
“I mean it.”
“I heard you.” She did. She wasn’t entirely sure she agreed with every edge of it, but she understood the line, and she had enough self-awareness to know she wasn’t equipped to parent anyone’s child. “All right,” she said again, quieter.
Rose held her gaze a moment, then nodded and went back to the box.
The silence between them wasn’t uncomfortable, which surprised Lizanne slightly.
“The filming schedule,” Lizanne said. “Sit down, please. We need to go over it. They sent the schedule for after we’re married.”
Rose sat on the edge of the bed. Lizanne took the chair by the window.
“Three days a week,” Lizanne said. “Mornings from nine until one, two evenings a week until ten. Confessionals are scheduled separately. They give us days in advance, we give them our availability, Pat manages the conflicts.” She paused. “They are not here every day. I was clear about that.”
