Lily.
Six years old.
Purple ribbons in her pigtails.
Every Saturday, she brought a new drawing for her mother.
A rainbow.
A cat.
A house.
The first two weeks I volunteered, her mother came.
On the third week, she didn’t.
Lily sat beside the window for an hour holding a drawing of herself and her mother holding hands.
At the top, in purple letters, she had written:
ME AND MOMMY.
Eventually, a staff member knelt beside her.
“Your mom couldn’t come today, sweetheart.”
Lily didn’t cry.
That was the part that broke me.
She simply folded her drawing into a neat little square.
Put it in her pocket.
And said,
“Okay.”
Like she already knew how disappointment worked.
I cried in my car for an hour afterward.
That evening, I had dinner with Julian.
Our fourth date.
He noticed immediately that something was wrong.
Of course he did.
I told him about Lily.
About the children watching the parking lot.
About the folded drawing.
“It’s the loneliest room I’ve ever seen,” I told him.
Then I said something I had almost completely forgotten.
“Nobody should have to wait for someone who might never come.”
Julian held my hand across the table.
He knew exactly what that place meant to me.
So why had he been there?
Charlie brought me back to the present.
“Dani?”
“I’m sorry.”
He hesitated.
“You look worried.”
“I am.”
Then Charlie said something that made my heartbeat jump.
“I thought you might be.”
I stared at him.
“You know Julian?”
“I wouldn’t say I know him well.”
He glanced toward his truck.
“But I’ve seen him.”
“How often?”
“Every Thursday.”
I stopped breathing.
“For almost a year.”
Yesterday had been Thursday.
Gym day.
Every Thursday for nearly a year.
Julian had supposedly been at the gym.
Instead, Charlie had seen him at the visitation center.
My mind immediately filled in the worst explanations.
A child I didn’t know about.
Another relationship.
A custody case.
Another family.
Twelve years of marriage suddenly felt less certain.
Charlie must have seen the panic on my face.
He lifted a hand.
“Dani, I think you’re imagining something that isn’t happening.”
“Then please tell me.”
He hesitated.
“It should probably come from Julian.”
“My husband has been going somewhere every Thursday for a year and lying to me about it.”
My voice cracked.
“I need to understand.”
Charlie’s expression softened.
“I volunteer there.”
I frowned.
“At the center?”
“Yes. Most Thursdays. Have for about six years.”
He explained that his grandson had once gone through supervised visitation.
After seeing what the waiting room was like, Charlie continued volunteering even after his family no longer needed the service.
Then he said,
“Julian volunteers too.”
I stared at him.
“What?”
“Every Thursday.”
“He never told me.”
“I don’t think he wanted people to know.”
“Why?”
Charlie thought for a second.
“Probably because he wasn’t doing it so people would know.”
Then he told me what Julian actually did there.
Every Thursday around four, Julian arrived straight from work.
Still wearing his tie.
Sometimes he read stories.
Sometimes he colored.
Sometimes he helped kids build castles from cardboard boxes.
He did ridiculous character voices.
Apparently, the children loved them.
Sometimes the entire waiting room became a dinosaur world.
Julian would crawl across the carpet roaring because one particular five-year-old thought that was hilarious.
Yesterday, the children had built a cardboard volcano.
Then painted it green.
Green.
My mind flashed back to Julian’s wrist.
The streak I had seen at dinner.
Marker, he had said.
It hadn’t been marker.
It had been paint.
From a cardboard volcano.
Charlie smiled.
“One little boy especially loves him.”
Five years old.
He had been coming every Thursday for roughly ten months.
His father was supposed to arrive at 4:30.
Sometimes he did.
Sometimes he didn’t.
The boy refused to play unless Julian agreed to become Daddy Dinosaur.
I almost laughed.
“Daddy Dinosaur?”
Charlie nodded seriously.
“Oh, yes. The kids assign everybody roles.”
Apparently, one staff member was Baby Triceratops.
Charlie had somehow been assigned the role of Confused Turtle.
I glanced at the bumper sticker on his truck.
“Maybe because you brake for turtles.”
Charlie looked at the sticker.
Then back at me.
“You know, I never thought of that.”
“And Julian?”
“Always Daddy Dinosaur.”
Then Charlie told me what had happened the previous afternoon.
The boy’s father didn’t come.
Third week in a row.
When the visit time ended, the little boy ran after Julian into the parking lot.
Wrapped both arms around his legs.
Wouldn’t let go.
Julian knelt down on the sidewalk and held him.
That was probably when the phone slipped from his jacket into the grass.
Charlie found it later while locking up.
I closed my eyes.
All the terrible possibilities I had imagined disappeared one by one.
No second family.
No secret child.
No other woman.
Just Julian kneeling on the sidewalk, holding a five-year-old whose father hadn’t shown up.
But one question remained.
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
Charlie walked back to his truck.
When he returned, he carried something small.
A green plastic T. rex.
It was cheap.
Worn.
One plastic eye was missing and had been replaced with a crooked marker drawing.
The tail had broken off at some point and was held together with several layers of tape.
