Chapter 2 - THE PERFECT WOMAN
Rebecca entered our lives looking like relief.
That is the part I hate admitting.
I was thirty-eight, divorced, working too many hours, and raising Lily between daycare drop-offs, client calls, custody schedules, and the kind of exhaustion that makes a man grateful for anyone who says, “I can help.”
Rebecca was a friend of Natalie’s.
Blonde.
Composed.
Organized.
The kind of woman who showed up with homemade soup when Lily had the flu and remembered which stuffed rabbit had to be in the crib before bedtime.
Lily’s mother, Anna, had moved to Seattle two years earlier for a job and visited when she could, but distance made everything harder. We were not enemies. We were just tired people trying to raise a child from opposite sides of the country.
Rebecca became steady.
She picked Lily up from preschool twice a week when I had late meetings.
She packed lunches.
She put little notes in Lily’s backpack.
She told my parents she adored children.
My mother loved her.
My father said I looked less stressed.
Natalie watched more carefully.
That was my sister’s gift.
She rarely objected quickly.
She collected details.
At first, Lily liked Rebecca too.
She liked anyone who read the same book three times without sighing.
But three months after Rebecca started spending more time at my house, Lily changed.
Small things.
She asked if she could eat breakfast twice.
She cried when I packed my work bag.
She hid crackers under her pillow.
Once, I found a cheese stick inside her toy piano.
When I asked Rebecca, she looked concerned.
“Food anxiety can happen after transitions,” she said. “She’s testing security.”
That sounded reasonable.
Everything Rebecca said sounded reasonable.
That was her power.
She never called Lily bad.
She called her “adjusting.”
Never said I was weak.
Said I was “overcompensating.”
Never told me not to ask questions.
Said I needed to “trust the system.”
And I was tired enough to let those phrases stand between me and my instincts.
Then came Sunday dinner at my parents’ house outside Boston.
Warm lights.
Roast chicken.
Crystal glasses.
My mother fussing over place settings.
My father telling the same story about his first car.
Rebecca beside me in her cream blouse, smiling like the woman everyone hoped I would marry.
And Lily on that chair, trembling, pointing across the table.
Daddy, she’s a monster.
May you like
A child rarely chooses the perfect word.
She chooses the word that fits the feeling.
