Chapter 4: The House With the Yellow Door
I didn't go the next day.
I told myself I needed time.
I told myself I had just buried my husband, that I was eight months pregnant, that no one could reasonably expect me to walk into a stranger's house and look a five-year-old in the eye and know what to say.
All of that was true.
But the real reason I waited was the photograph.
I kept taking it out and putting it back.
I kept looking at that smile — Mark's smile — on a face I had never seen before, and I kept feeling two things at once that had no business existing in the same body at the same time.
Grief.
And something that felt dangerously close to recognition.
I went on the third day.
The address led me to a quiet street on the east side of town.
Small houses, tidy yards, a dog barking somewhere behind a fence.
The house I was looking for had a yellow front door.
There was a wind chime hanging from the porch eave, and a pair of small rubber boots sitting on the top step.
Pink.
With white stars.
I sat in the car for ten minutes before I got out.
A woman answered the door before I finished knocking.
Mid-fifties, reading glasses pushed up on her head, a dish towel over one shoulder.
Her name was Carol.
Mark's doctor had called ahead.
"You must be Claire," she said.
Not unkindly.
"Yes."
She looked at my stomach for just a moment — not rudely, just noticing — and then stepped back to let me in.
"She's in the back garden," Carol said.
"She doesn't know you're coming.
We thought it was better that way.
Less pressure on her if it didn't — " She stopped.
"Less pressure."
"That was the right call," I said.
The house was warm and smelled like something baking.
There were drawings taped to the refrigerator — crayon suns, lopsided houses, a purple cat.
One of them had LILY written across the top in large, careful letters, each one a slightly different size.
Carol led me to the back door and paused with her hand on the frame.
"She's a good girl," she said quietly.
"She's had a hard few months.
But she's a good girl."
"I know," I said.
And then, because I didn't know why I said it: "I already know."
I stepped outside.
The garden was small — a square of grass, a wooden fence, a bird feeder on a pole that needed refilling.
Lily was crouched near the far corner, very focused on something in the grass.
The worn rabbit was tucked under her arm.
She didn't hear me at first.
I walked slowly, the way you do when you don't want to startle someone.
A twig snapped under my foot.
She looked up.
Dark eyes.
Mark's eyes.
Mark's exact eyes.
We looked at each other across the garden.
"Hi," she said.
Cautious but not afraid.
"Hi," I said.
"My name is Claire."
She considered this.
"I'm Lily."
"I know.
Your dad told me about you."
Something shifted in her face.
Not sadness exactly — more like the particular stillness of a child who has learned to be careful around the subject of her father.
"He's gone now," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"I know.
He was my husband."
She looked at my stomach.
"Is that the baby?"
"It is."
"Is it a girl?"
"Yes."
Lily was quiet for a moment.
Then she stood up, brushed the grass off her knees with one hand, and walked toward me.
She stopped about two feet away and looked up at my face with the frank, searching attention that only small children have.
"Daddy said I might have a little sister," she said.
"He said maybe."
My throat tightened.
"He told me the same thing."
She looked at my stomach again.
Then back at my face.
"Are you going to go away?" she asked.
"After today?"
The question landed like a stone dropped into still water.
I crouched down — slowly, carefully, one hand on my knee — until I was level with her.
"I don't know yet what everything is going to look like," I said.
"But I'm not going to disappear.
I promise you that."
She studied me for another long moment.
Then she held out the rabbit.
"This is Gerald," she said.
"He's shy but he likes most people."
I took the rabbit carefully in both hands.
He was very soft, and very loved, and one of his button eyes was slightly loose.
"Hello, Gerald," I said.
Lily almost smiled.
Not quite.
But almost.
Behind me, through the back door, I heard Carol exhale — a long, quiet breath she had probably been holding since I arrived.
I stayed for two hours.
We didn't talk about anything important after that.
We looked at a beetle in the grass.
She showed me a drawing she had done of a horse, which she informed me was actually a dog.
I told her I had a dog once named Biscuit and she told me that was a funny name for a dog and I agreed.
When I finally stood to leave, she walked me to the front door without being asked.
At the step, she stopped.
"Claire?" she said.
"Yes?"
"Will you come back?"
I looked at her standing there in the doorway — small and straight and careful, holding Gerald against her chest with both arms, waiting.
"Yes," I said.
"I'll come back."
I walked to my car.
I didn't look back until I reached the door.
She was still standing there, watching.
I raised my hand.
She raised hers.
I drove two blocks before I had to pull over.
I sat there with both hands on the wheel and let myself cry — not from sadness, exactly, but from the specific, overwhelming feeling of something enormous settling into place, something you didn't plan for and couldn't have predicted, something that was going to change the entire shape of your life.
May you like
When I finally pulled back onto the road, I realized I was still holding Gerald.
I had forgotten to give him back.
