h o l l y b e n n e t t
3 4
their attitude toward midwives and home birth and stuff
like that.
Lucy shook her head. “Admin and reception,
mostly. Though I don’t think much happens after nine.”
Thankfully, the subject of her father was left behind.
Mom moved on to grilling Noah about his geography
project, and Dad launched into his concerns about the
coming invasion of the Asian carp—which I would
normally have been interested in, actually, but that night
I was distracted. I was thinking that when we were alone
again, Lucy might tell me about her dad, and sure enough
she did.
We were on the couch downstairs, nominally watching
Bob’s Burgers
, but she was restless. Then she reached for
the remote, clicked it off and turned to me.
“It’s probably time I told you about my checkered
past,” she said. And I just shut up and let her tell it.
“My dad died when I was fifteen.” It came out flat and
blunt. “A car crash on the highway to Ottawa. It was—
well, you can imagine. It was bad.”
I nodded sympathetically, but I couldn’t imagine, or
maybe I didn’t want to.
“My mom kind of fell apart. I mean, we were both—
oh God—” She faltered. I waited. She took her hand
away from the frayed cuff she’d been worrying and began
again. “Of course, you fall apart. But she sort of stayed
that way. It was like she just—went away. Day after day.
And there I was, trying to make sure that there was food
