“I could tell.”
“I thought your son
had put my daughter online to get attention.”
Ethan stared.
David turned toward him.
“I was wrong.”
Ethan said nothing.
“You should have asked us.”
Ethan nodded.
“Yes, sir.”
“You should not have carried this alone.”
Another nod.
Then David’s voice broke.
“But you noticed something I didn’t.”
Ethan looked up.
“What?”
“That Lily thought she was costing us too much.”
David swallowed.
“I’ve spent a year telling her we’re fine.”
He shook his head.
“Maybe she needed me to tell her she was worth whatever it costs.”
Ethan whispered:
“She is.”
David cried then.
Not dramatically.
Quietly.
Like a father whose daughter had become frightened of being expensive.
That afternoon, Lily came to my house.
She was wearing Ethan’s wig.
It looked beautiful.
Not because it was perfect.
Because Ethan’s hair had always curled slightly near the ends, and somehow the wig maker had preserved that.
