The Day Lily Turned Around
Chapter 10 - The Day Lily Turned Around
Samuel remembered the day clearly.
Lily was six months pregnant.
She had purchased a ticket home after deciding she could no longer live with the lies.
Then Margaret found her at the airport.
No one knew how.
Samuel believed Margaret had hired someone to watch Lily.
The two women argued near the departure gate.
Margaret told Lily that Thomas had married.
That Marisol knew about the pregnancy and wanted nothing to do with her.
Both were lies.
Then Margaret showed Lily a photograph of Thomas standing beside Rebecca, the woman he would eventually marry.
The photograph had been taken at a charity event.
Margaret presented it as an engagement picture.
Lily believed her.
She left the airport.
She never tried again.
Thomas held the old unused ticket.
His hands trembled.
“She was one gate away.”
Ethan stared at him.
“One lie away.”
No one spoke.
That evening, Marisol made a decision.
They were going to see Margaret.
Thomas objected.
Ethan did too.
But Marisol had spent twenty years waiting to say goodbye to a sister who would never walk through her door.
She refused to let another day pass without confronting the woman responsible.
Margaret lived in an assisted-living community outside the city.
When they entered her private sitting room, the elderly woman was waiting.
She looked at Ethan for a long time.
Then she said something that shocked everyone.
“You look exactly like Thomas did at nineteen.”
Ethan did not smile.
Margaret turned toward her son.
“I assume you've come to condemn me.”
Thomas answered quietly.
“No.”
Margaret seemed surprised.
“I came to ask whether you're capable of telling the truth once before you die.”
The room went silent.
Margaret looked toward Ethan again.
Her expression changed.
For the first time, the steel disappeared.
“I did terrible things.”
Ethan waited.
Then Margaret whispered:
“But there is one thing Lily never knew.”
Thomas stepped forward.
“What?”
May you like
Margaret's eyes filled with tears.
“I tried to bring her back.”
