There is a kind of tired that sleep cannot fix. Lily learned its shape in the two years after her father died.
She woke at five. She scrubbed the kitchen floor before Cecilia came down, because Cecilia had decided that the house was too big for Martha alone and that Lily, as "family," should contribute.
She did the laundry, the dishes, the windows. She attended lectures from nine until two.
She worked at Pages bookshop until nine at night, then walked home through the dark and climbed the three flights to the little room under the roof.
She had one meal most days. Sometimes two, when Martha could manage it.
On paper, she was one of the wealthiest young women in the city. In real life, she counted coins. Under Cecilia's "protective arrangement," every account, deed and key was in her stepmother's name, kept safe "until Lily was grown."
And every month, without fail, she paid her university fees.
She did it with coins and small notes, counted out from the biscuit tin under her floorboard, and from the money she earned at Pages. Mr. Abel had quietly raised her wages without being asked. When her textbooks wore out, he lent her his own.
When she once fell asleep standing at the counter, he put a blanket over her shoulders and told the customers she was inventorying the poetry shelf.
"Why are you doing this?" she asked him.
"Because you are the only person who has ever read every book in this shop," said Mr. Abel. "A man ought to look after such a person."
At home, there was no such kindness.
Cecilia had stopped hiding her contempt. Without Edward to perform for, she let it show openly. She called Lily "the girl" and "that one" and sometimes "the burden." She slapped her for burning the toast, for speaking out of turn, for looking at her too long.
Clara and Evelyn grew up on this example. They were twenty-three and twenty-two now, and beautiful in the way of people who have never been told no. They treated Lily like a pet that had not been well trained.
"Make us tea," Clara would say, not looking up from her phone. "And don't be slow."
Lily made the tea.
Late one night in March, as she sat on her cot with her feet tucked under her and a cold biscuit in her hand, Martha came up the stairs and closed the door softly behind her.
"I have something to tell you," Martha said. "I should have told you before. I was afraid."
"What is it?"
Martha sat on the edge of the cot. Her hands were twisting in her apron. "Do you remember the letter you wrote? The month before your father died?"
Lily's heart gave a hard knock. She remembered. She had written it in a burst of fury after Cecilia had pulled her hair so hard that a tuft came away in her fingers.
It was a short, plain letter. Dad, if you ever want to know how I am, please call me. Not the house. My own number. I am scared and I don't know who else to tell. Then she had torn it up.
"I tore that up."
"You tore it in half," Martha said. "I found it in the wastebasket. I taped it together."
Lily stared at her.
"I walked it to your father's office myself. I put it in the hands of his secretary and told her it was personal and urgent." Martha's voice shook. "That was nineteen days before the accident."
The room went completely still.
I read your letter, her father had said, with his last breath. Lily. The letter.
"He got it," Lily whispered.
"I believe he did."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you were grieving, and I did not know what it meant." Martha wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "I still don't.
But I have been turning it over for months, and I think your father was on his way somewhere that day. Not just to a meeting. I think he was on his way to do something about it."
Lily sat very still. Outside, a night bird called once, then fell silent.
"Then why did he die?" she said. "And why did she go through his briefcase?"
"What briefcase?"
"The one the nurses gave her," Lily said slowly. "I saw her take it."
They looked at each other in the dim light. Neither of them spoke. Neither of them needed to.
Downstairs, a door slammed, and Clara's voice rose in a whine. Lily stood and straightened her shoulders. There was work to do, and a long day ahead.
But from that night on, she carried a new question inside her, and it burned.