He finally lifted his eyes to look at her, and yeah, that said it all.
Lydia suddenly sat up and grabbed Tina’s hands to get her daughter’s attention.
“Tina sweety, those cookies look so yummy! Why don’t you go with Miss O’Shanney to wash you hannies, so we can eat them? Hmm?”
Tina was already nodding and bouncing off of her mother’s lap.
Yeah . . . yeah. That’s thinking. Maybe it would be better if Tina didn’t hear the details about Kari. So far, all Tina knows is that her sister is sleeping in the hospital. We should probably keep it that way.
I got up from my perch on the couch next to Jiro, and held out my hand for Tina. She was already skipping towards the door to the visitation room, and chanting her cute little washing song.
“Splish splash, washy hannies, washy hannies!”
We ended up spending a good long time in the restroom washing up. I wanted Jiro to have plenty of time to talk to Lydia without us coming back halfway through the conversation. It wasn’t too difficult, Tina absolutely loved splashing in water. The hard part was getting her to stop once she got going. The only kids I’d ever seen that loved water this much were water witches and hydormancers.
By the time we were headed back to the visitation room, Tina’s little tummy was soaked and her hands were some of the cleanest six year old hands on the planet, and Jiro had more than enough time to tell Lydia what’s up.
Tina, a few steps ahead of me, shoved open the door, eager to get more of those cookies. And stumbled at what she saw. Jiro was sitting next to Lydia, his arm around her shoulders. Considering how hands-off he was with most adults, that was a little unusual. But that wasn’t what had Tina bolting across the room, leaving me in her wake. 
Lydia was crumpled over, her head in her hands, her face red and puffy, she was still sniffling and hiccuping. 
If anyone doubted that Lydia cared about Kari, this should have been answer enough. The expression on Lydia’s face . . . it’s like someone had ripped out a piece of her heart.
I’ve questioned a lot of liars in my time on the force, some were just people stretching the truth to make themselves look more important than they really were, others were changing details to get their own ass out of trouble, some were even con men that their profession was lying, but very few could put up an act like that.
I might not like Lydia. She chokes under pressure, makes rookie mistakes, and then blames others for her short comings.
But no one could fake that pain, and even I felt sympathy for her.
And it was that pain that had Tina running to her mother in a panic.
“Mommy! Mommy!”
She was stroking her tiny hands over her mother’s face and wrapping up Lydia’s bowed head in her little arms.
“What’s wrong Mommy? What’s wrong? I’ll make it all better!”
Tina’s voice had already gone a little warbly. She was definitely a sympathetic crier. If someone she cared about was crying, she would cry too. She might not understand why they were crying, but that didn’t matter. She felt their pain. Because that was just what a pure child of goodness Tina was! She was like an angel on Earth!
Lydia sniffled a few more times and managed a strangled laugh, her voice was still trembling.
“Oh it’s nothing sweety, Mommy just stubbed her toe. But I’m all better now that you gave me a hug.”
Tina pulled away, looking uncertain.
“Really?”
Lydia forced a tight smile on her face, her voice shifting to one of exaggerated glee.
“Really sweety. Oh my, those cookies look so good! We should probably eat them before they go bad!”
Tina slowly nodded, and turned back to the cookies on the table. It didn’t look like she bought Lydia’s lie completely but was willing to go along with her mother’s lead.
This little scene, this alone should have told Lydia how stupid her little prejudice against me was. I might look similar, I might even be similar to her, but I would never be Tina’s mother nor would anyone else. 
In Tina’s mind, there was no one that could ever replace her, or even compete.