Lily smiled. “Gee, thanks.”
Dr. Jack returned her grin. “My pleasure, Mrs. McGilly.”
As she wrote the check, Lily marveled at the direction her life was taking. She never thought she’d live to hear a butch — or anyone — call her “Mrs.” anything.
After Lily finally agreed to let Mordecai in bed with her, he dropped off in a fitful sleep. Lying awake while Mordecai snored beside her and Ben snored in the next room, Lily had her first moment of enlightenment since Charlotte’s death.
She was thinking about the story Dr. Jack told, about going with her father on vet calls when she was a little girl. There was a picture book in that story —a picture book about farm animals, so simple that even very young children like Mimi could enjoy it. But the pictures of the farm animals could be framed by the story of the little girl and her father — and how the little girl wants to grow up to be a vet.
Lily had never written a book for such young children before, but she liked the idea of writing something for Mimi. It would be a lasting gift for her daughter — even if things in the courtroom didn’t work out.
She wanted to draw the animals in accurate detail, something along the lines of Garth Williams’
wonderful illustrations for Charlotte’s Web, but she hadn’t been to a farm since a field trip in first grade.
Lily wondered if Dr. Jack might agree to let her go along on a few farm calls, so she could sit back at a safe distance and sketch the animals. She would ask her on Friday, she decided, when she called about Mordecai.
CHAPTER 11
“The hearing is set for August fifteenth,” Buzz Dobson told Lily and Ben as they sat in his dingy law office, the decor of which consisted of half a dozen dusty football trophies and one bedraggled plastic plant. “Let’s just pray that the air-conditioning in the courthouse is working.”
Lily sighed and looked down at Mimi, who was getting positively filthy playing on the law office’s unmopped floor. “I’m afraid the temperature in the courtroom is the least of our worries.”
Buzz shot Ben a conspiratorial grin. “She’s the nervous type, ain’t she?”
“Well,” Ben said, attempting a macho attitude, “you know how women get about babies.”
Lily sat quietly with her hands in her lap, but her fists were clenched so tightly she doubted anyone would be able to pry them apart.
Buzz pasted a condescending smile across his face. “Now, Mrs. McGilly, I don’t think you have a thing to worry about. We just need to establish that you and Benny Jack love each other and that you love Mimi and take good care of her. And if Benny Jack here is Mimi’s real father like he says he is, you’ve got no worries.”
“Right,” Lily said, clenching her fists even tighter. “No worries.”
“Now if you wanna do something that’ll turn the odds even more in your favor, I have a couple of suggestions for you, Mrs. McGilly.”
“Yeah?”
“Well...” Buzz shuffled some papers uncomfortably. “When you’re up there on the stand, you could try to look like a nice girl.”
