Chapter 12 - THE FIRST TIME DANIEL GETS TO BE A FATHER
This chapter is deliberately emotional after the heavy conspiracy chapters.
Police relocate Lily temporarily.
Daniel stays with her while Anna and Moreno work the case.
For the first time, he spends an entire day alone with his daughter.
He burns pancakes.
Fails at braiding her hair.
Learns she hates thunderstorms even though he loves them.
Helps with a school project.
Gets asked whether he and Anna will live together again.
Daniel refuses to give Lily a false happy ending.
He says:
“I love your mom.”
“But loving someone doesn’t mean you get to skip the hard part.”
Lily asks:
“Do you think she still loves you?”
Daniel answers:
“I think she’s trying to decide whether she can trust me.”
Lily says:
“But you didn’t do anything.”
Daniel replies:
“Sometimes trust gets hurt even when the person standing in front of you wasn’t the one who broke it.”
This becomes a key thematic line.
At the end, Lily remembers something.
Years earlier, a gray-haired woman came to see June.
She called herself “Becca.”
May you like
Rebecca Mills had known where Anna and Lily were long before Daniel did.
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