Page 54 of Lillian

“I’m sorry,” Lincoln tells me as I go to pass him, and I stop to face him.

“Lincoln,” I laugh, “It’s okay. That’s how kids are. We’ll get a light today, and it’ll be like it never happened.”

He still doesn’t look convinced. Up on my tiptoes, I lean in for a kiss, which he meets me for easily.

“Stop worrying, you’ll get a permanent furrow.” I push my finger in between his eyes where a little ‘V’ has formed. It smoothes out immediately under my touch.

Lincoln opens his mouth to say something when an impatient young woman comes running back down the hall to us. “Mooooom.”

“Okay, we’re coming.” I roll my eyes at Grace, making Lincoln laugh at the pair of us, and he places a hand on my lower back to get us going.

“Come on, then. I’ve got to cook my lady’s breakfast.”

If every Saturday is like this for the rest of my life, I will die happy,I think as light blooms in my chest watching Lincoln set my daughter on the island and talk to her like she’s his own.

Perfect. That’s how I’d describe this moment.

That feeling evaporated as quickly as it came. Grace is almost done with her visitation with her bio mom. When I dropped her off with Yasmine, I spent the next ten minutes crying in my car. Her mom showed up, was on time, and looked better than sheever has. There was a shine to her usually dull hair, and her eyes were focused.

Very much sober, too.

It sounds weird to say that is what made me dissolve into a fit of tears. But six months. That is six months of visits, which is going to look too appealing to the judge. What once sounded like the worst-case scenario is looking like a real possibility now, and I’m not coping well.

The thought of never holding my baby girl when she’s sad, of never having anotherDisneymovie marathon, or watching her play with her cousin…

Another round of sobs wrack my body, and I bend over the steering wheel as my chest heaves from the force of them.

Stop.

I have to stop. Time is almost up, and the last thing Grace needs is for me to be a blubbering mess.

“Stop, Lillian.” I tell myself out loud, thinking happy thoughts and aggressively wiping away the tears. Just in time, too, because Yasmine walks out the front door of the building directly in front of me, holding Grace’s hand.

Not hesitating, I jump out of the car to meet them but slow my steps when I see Talia following them out, making Yasmine and Grace laugh at something she says. Envy curls in my gut.

That’smydaughter.

“Hey, baby!” I call out to Grace, who comes running my way when she sees me. I bend down to scoop her up and then look at Talia.

That’s right. Mine,I say with my eyes. I know I should be the bigger person. But I can’t find it in me.

“You ready to get a little shopping in?” I ask my daughter, smiling big to hide the other emotions raging in me.

“Yeah! Mommy, can Talia come?” The knife twists deeper in my stomach.

“Oh, I’m sure Talia is busy, baby. Maybe next time.” Maybe never. Grace looks to Talia to confirm, and for a minute, I’m worried she’ll say she isn’t busy and I’ll have to be the bad guy. But what she says is even worse.

“Sorry, Grace. I can’t today. But we’ll get to spend so much more time together soon. Promise, okay?” Her eyes dart to mine briefly before settling back on Grace’s.

Lucifer’s deepest pits of Hell couldn’t hold a candle to the fire inside me.

Over. My. Dead. Body.

“I’ll talk to you later?” I ask Yasmine, ready to get the hell out of here. She looks nervously between the two of us but nods, giving me the escape I need.

When Grace is put down for the night—with her blue Elsa nightlight plugged in and the curtains drawn up just enough to let the morning light in tomorrow—I sit down on Lincoln’s enormous leather sectional, biting my fingernails to the nub.

Not even the image of my very shirtless, very sexy boyfriend can calm me right now.

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