Ryle and I are both quiet for a moment. Maybe he can tell I’m at my limit because I’m not keeping my frustration as under control anymore. I spin and face him, looking at him pleadingly. “This is our life now. Yours, mine, Lily’s, your daughter’s. We have to deal with this. Forever. Holidays, birthdays, graduations, Emerson’s wedding. All these things are going to be difficult for you, but you’re the only one who can make sure they aren’t difficult for the rest of us, too. Because none of us owes you our happiness. Especially Lily.”

Ryle shakes his head. He paces like he’s trying to erase the asphalt and uncover earth. “You expect me to what—to cheer you two on? To wish you well? To encourage you to be a good father to my fucking daughter?” He laughs at the absurdity he finds in the idea of that, but I keep a very straight face.

“Yes. Exactly that.”

I think my response throws him off. He pauses and threads his hands at the nape of his neck.

I take a step closer to him, but not in a threatening way. I don’t want to yell. I want Ryle to hear the absolute sincerity in my voice. “As happy as I know I can make Lily, she’ll never be fully happy until she has your acceptance and cooperation. And you’re making it difficult, even though you know she deserves a good life. They both do. If you want your daughter to grow up with the best version of Lily, then please work with her. This is possible for all of us.”

Ryle rolls his neck. “What are we, some kind of team now?”

I hate that he’s trying to make any of this sound beyond the realm of possibility. “A team is the only thing people should be when kids are involved.”

That hits him. I can see it in the way he flinches, and then subtly swallows. He turns around and faces away from me, taking a few steps while he contemplates everything I’ve said. When he turns back around and looks at me, there’s a little less vitriol there.

“When things don’t work out between the two of you and Lily needs somewhere to run, I’m not picking up the pieces this time.” With that, Ryle walks away. He doesn’t go through the restaurant this time. He heads down the alley, toward the street.

I can do nothing but stare at him with pity as he walks away. He truly doesn’t know Lily at all.

At all.

Lily doesn’t run to people. She didn’t run after me when I left Maine. She didn’t run to me when she left Ryle. She focused on being a mother. Yet that’s what he expects her to do if things don’t work out between us? Run to him like he’s her home base?

Lily’s home base is Emerson, and if he still can’t see that, he’s clueless.

If Lily had stayed with him, he would have spent the rest of their lives inventing issues in order to justify his excessive anger. Because I was never an issue in their marriage, and I never would have been.