Not I like it.
I'm supposed to.
I went back to my photo gallery and searched for every picture Vanessa had sent me over the previous year.
There were fewer than I remembered.
Most showed Lily sitting at a table, holding a school certificate, or posing beside a birthday cake. Her clothing was usually unremarkable, and the images had been carefully framed around her face.
I realized I had accepted those photographs as evidence that everything was fine because I wanted to believe it.
Then I opened Daniel's social media page.
And everything changed.
Four days earlier, he had posted a photograph of Lily standing in the exact living room where I had visited her that afternoon.
My granddaughter looked beautiful.
She wore a brand-new cream sweater, a red plaid skirt, white tights, and polished black shoes. Her blonde hair fell in soft curls, and she held a small pink handbag against her side.
She looked like a child dressed for a holiday portrait.
The caption beneath the picture read:
Vanessa always makes sure my little girl has everything she needs.
I stared at those words.
Then I opened the photograph I had taken that afternoon.
The same house.
The same child.
The same week.
But in my picture, Lily wore the oversized blue dress, her hair looked hurriedly tied back, and the collar of her clothing had begun to curl.
I placed the photographs side by side on my tablet.
My stomach tightened.
I zoomed in on the background of Daniel's photograph.
The living room furniture was arranged exactly as I remembered it. The decorative vase beside the television was the same. The little green cushion Lily liked had been placed in the same corner of the sofa.
There was no question that both pictures had been taken in the same house.
Yet they seemed to show two completely different versions of my granddaughter's life.
I scrolled through Daniel's earlier posts.
There was Lily in a beautiful yellow raincoat.
Lily in a navy school uniform that looked perfectly fitted.
Lily wearing bright red winter boots.
Lily standing beside Vanessa in a new pink coat.
I had never seen most of those outfits.
Not once.
I looked at the caption beneath the pink coat photograph.
Our little princess is ready for winter.