Chapter 25 - MARA’S APARTMENT
The first overnight happened because Lily asked.
Mara had never pushed for it. Her guardianship agreement allowed gradual expansion, but for months she limited visits to afternoons, dinners and occasional late evenings. She wanted Lily to learn her apartment without being made to prove anything by sleeping there.
Then one Friday Lily packed a backpack.
Claire found pajamas, a toothbrush, six stuffed animals and no clean underwear.
“What is this?”
“I’m sleeping at Momma Mara’s.”
Claire sat on the edge of Lily’s bed. “Did Momma Mara say that?”
“No.”
“Then maybe call first.”
Lily looked offended by logistics.
Mara answered on the second ring. Claire heard the silence when Lily announced the plan, followed by a careful, “If your mom is okay with it.”
Lily put the phone against her chest. “Are you okay with it?”
Claire hated that the honest answer was complicated.
She trusted Mara.
She trusted the apartment.
She trusted the agreement.
What she did not trust was the sensation in her own body when she imagined Lily sleeping somewhere else because another woman was also her mother.
“Yes,” Claire said.
Lily narrowed her eyes. “Your face says no.”
Claire almost laughed.
“My face is having feelings. My answer is yes.”
That seemed acceptable.
Mara arrived an hour later and immediately noticed Claire’s effort. After Lily ran back upstairs for another stuffed animal, Mara said, “You can change your mind.”
“That would make me feel better and make everything worse.”
Mara nodded. “Probably.”
Claire handed over Lily’s allergy medication and wrote instructions Mara already knew. She explained the bedtime routine twice. Mara listened both times without pointing out that she had once cared for a newborn before the Holloways took her away.
Lily left waving from the passenger seat.
Claire closed the door.
Then cried in the kitchen.
She did not call Mara.
She did not invent an emergency.
She did not drive past the apartment.
At nine forty-two Mara sent one photograph because their agreement allowed it. Lily was asleep diagonally across the bed, taking up most of the space, with one stuffed horse pressed against Mara’s pillow.
Claire laughed through the tears.
The next morning Lily returned wearing mismatched socks and complaining that Mara’s pancakes were too flat.
Mara looked personally wounded.
Claire looked at Lily.
“Did you have a good time?”
“Yes.”
“Do you want to do it again sometime?”
“Yes.”
That was all Claire needed to know.
Later Mara texted her.
Thank you.
Claire stared at the message before answering.
She did not write You’re welcome.
She wrote:
She shouldn’t need permission to love both of us.
Mara replied several minutes later.
Neither should we.
Claire saved that message.
May you like
Not as evidence.
Just because she wanted to keep it.
