“That’s...”
“Practical. Cold. Entirely in keeping with Tajiri values.” He turned his head to look at her, and something in her expression made his chest ache. “Don’t pity me, Emma. I survived. I made something of myself. And I did it without any help from him.”
“I don’t pity you,” she said firmly. “I’m just... I’m angry on your behalf. And sad for the twelve-year-old boy who lost his mother and had no one to turn to.”
“I turned to myself. It was enough.”
“Was it?”
The question hung in the air between them. He wanted to say yes. He wanted to believe that he’d moved past the lonely child who’d watched his mother die in a cramped refugee hold, who’d stood in his father’s gleaming office and been told he was worth nothing, and who’d learned that the only person he could count on was himself.
But lying to her felt impossible in this quiet darkness, with her eyes searching his face and her hand resting warm against his heart.
“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Some days I think I’ve built a good life. Other days I wonder if I’m just... running. Moving from place to place, treasure to treasure, never staying long enough for anything to matter.”
“The Vault matters to you.”
“The Vault is different. The Vault is...” He struggled for words. “It’s proof that I’m more than what my father said I was. That I can accomplish something no one else has ever done.”
“And when you find it? What then?”
He didn’t have an answer for that. He’d spent so long focused on the search that he’d never really considered what came after.
She seemed to sense his uncertainty, and she settled back against his shoulder, her body fitting against his with an ease that should have alarmed him.
“My father was charming too,” she said quietly. “In his own way.”
The shift in conversation caught him off guard. “Your father?”
“Mm. The most unreliable man I’ve ever known, and somehow also the most lovable.” Her laugh was soft, but he could hear the hurt beneath it. “He raised me after my mother left. Or rather, he let me accompany him while I raised myself.”
“What do you mean?”
“He was always chasing something. The next big opportunity, the next get-rich-quick scheme, the next rainbow with a pot of gold at the end.” She started stroking his chest again. “We moved constantly. New cities, new apartments, new schools. He’d get a job, keep it for a few months, then quit because he’d heard about something better somewhere else.”
“That must have been difficult for a child.”
“It was. But it was also... he made it an adventure, you know? Every move was a new beginning, a fresh start. He’d sweep me up in his enthusiasm, convince me that this time would be different and everything would work out.”
“Did it ever?”
“No,” she said quietly. “But he never stopped believing it would. That was his gift—unshakeable optimism in the face of all evidence. And his curse, because it meant he never had to deal with the consequences of his choices.”
He thought of his own father, cold and calculating. Two very different kinds of failure, perhaps, but failure nonetheless.
“Is he still alive? Your father?”
“Yes.” Her voice wavered slightly. “But I haven’t seen him for a while. He calls me occasionally and promises to come visit but somehow there’s always something more... important.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Don’t be.” She sighed, and he felt it more than heard it—the expansion and collapse of her ribs against his side. “I’ve spent my whole adult life trying to be the opposite of him. I became a teacher because I wanted to give children the consistency I never had. I bought a house because I wanted to stop moving. I built a life that was mine, that no one could take away.”
“And now?”
A long silence. “And now I’m millions of miles from that life, and I don’t know if I’ll ever see it again.”
He heard the tears in her voice before he saw them, but when he turned his head, the dim light caught the gleam of moisture on her cheeks. His chest ached.
