“Mom,” she said.
“Hey, baby. You should be sleeping.”
“I know.” She looked at her hands. “Mom, I need to tell you something.”
I sat on the edge of her bed.
“Daddy asked me to help,” she said. “With the thing tomorrow. With the judge.”
I kept my voice very steady. “What do you mean?”
She slid off the bed and went to her backpack in the corner. She came back with a shoebox, the kind that her sneakers had come in, and held it out to me.
“He gave me things to keep,” she said. “Receipts and papers and stuff. He told me to hide them and not tell you. He said it was important. He said if I helped, we could live with him full time.” She looked up at me. “He said you’d be okay because you were used to being broke.”
I took the box from her. I didn’t open it. I just held it for a moment.
“Lily,” I said carefully. “This was a lot to carry.”
