“Safe?” I echoed. “You left her a note telling her to pack and leave. You tried to push my fourteen-year-old daughter out of her own room, in her own house, because Rachel’s son might need temporary space.”
My mother’s jaw tightened. “Mason is family.”
“So is Lily.”
The staircase behind them creaked, and all three of us looked up at once.
Lily stood halfway down, one hand wrapped around the banister, bare feet tucked close together on the step as if she could somehow occupy less space by concentrating. She had probably been listening for my voice since I came through the front door. Her face was pale, eyes still swollen from crying, hair pulled into the kind of rough ponytail she does herself when she’s upset and doesn’t want help. She looked like a child trying very hard to make herself invisible in a house that had suddenly informed her invisibility might be useful to others.
That sight decided something in me more firmly than the legal paperwork ever had.
My father lifted the packet again, scanning lower this time. “This says we have thirty days.”
“Yes,” I said. “Virginia requires proper notice. You’ll get proper notice. You’ll get more fairness from me than you gave my daughter.”