“Yes.”
He closed his eyes.
“Both?”
She laughed bitterly.
“Apparently.”
The first supervised visit with Lily lasted thirty minutes at a family-services center.
Nathan entered holding nothing.
No toys.
No gifts.
His therapist advised against trying to purchase forgiveness.
Lily sat beside Claire at first.
Nathan crouched several feet away.
“Hi.”
She looked at him.
“Hi.”
“I miss you.”
Dr. Chen had warned Nathan not to say things that made Lily responsible for his emotions.
He corrected himself.
“I’m happy to see you.”
Lily looked toward Claire.
Then Nathan.
“Do I have to hug?”
“No.”
The answer came immediately.
Lily relaxed slightly.
Nathan sat on the floor.
She had brought crayons.
He asked:
“Can I draw?”
“Yes.”
For fifteen minutes they drew animals.
Nathan was terrible.
Lily laughed at his giraffe.
Then stopped laughing suddenly, as though happiness with him might be disloyal to Claire.
Claire recognized it.
She smiled.
“Daddy’s giraffe is terrible.”
Lily looked relieved.
“It looks like a horse.”
Nathan smiled.
“A very tall horse.”
At the end Lily hugged him.
Briefly.
Nathan cried afterward in the parking lot.
Not where she could see.
Good.
Supervised visits continued for three months.
Then community visits.
Park.
Library.
Ice cream.
Doors remained a theme.
At the library, Lily refused to enter a small study room with Nathan.
He did not ask twice.
At a restaurant bathroom, she asked Claire to come instead.
No guilt.
By the following spring, Nathan received permission for unsupervised daytime contact.
No overnights yet.
He had completed parenting classes.
Therapy.
A psychological evaluation.
No diagnosis that neatly explained everything.
No secret violent personality.
No substance problem.
No affair.
No grand hidden evil.
That disappointed some relatives.
Evelyn especially.
She wanted a clean category.
“Something has to be wrong with him.”
Claire looked at her mother.
“Something was.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yes.”
Claire shook her head.
“I think ordinary people can do harmful things.”
Evelyn frowned.
“That scares me more.”
“Me too.”
Claire and Nathan separated legally but did not file for divorce immediately.
Not because Claire promised reconciliation.
She simply did not know.
At first friends treated uncertainty as weakness.
“You can’t stay after that.”
“Would you ever trust him?”
“What kind of father locks a child in a closet?”
Claire stopped discussing it with those people.
Not because they were entirely wrong.