Chapter 7 - LILY ALMOST QUIT
Lily gave notice.
I refused to accept it immediately.
Not because I could force her to work.
Because I wanted to understand.
“Why?”
She looked toward Ethan’s playroom.
“This is too much.”
“The investigation?”
“Everything.”
“You protected him.”
“That doesn’t mean I want my life turned into evidence.”
Fair.
Reporters had contacted her.
Someone leaked her name.
Online strangers accused her of seducing me.
Others called her a hero.
Both narratives treated her like a character rather than a twenty-six-year-old employee who had been frightened.
“I can arrange security.”
“That’s not it.”
“What is it?”
She hesitated.
“I don’t trust myself here anymore.”
I frowned.
She continued:
“I started watching Serena all the time. Listening at doors. Recording. Waiting for something bad. I don’t want to become someone who thinks surveillance is normal.”
That sentence impressed me.
She understood something I had missed.
Protective behavior can become unhealthy if the emergency never ends.
The emergency needed to end.
I gave her paid leave.
Not hush money.
Not a settlement.
Contractual paid leave plus additional trauma support we mutually documented.
She accepted.
Ethan struggled without her.
Then adapted.
Children can love multiple caregivers.
That mattered for me too.
I had begun thinking Lily was indispensable.
No one should have that much unexamined authority in a child’s life.
Even a good person.
I hired a temporary nanny through the agency with layered oversight.
Lily returned six weeks later voluntarily.
Reduced schedule.
May you like
Clearer boundaries.
It was healthier.
