I looked down at her, at the soft weight of her in my arms, and had to swallow hard before I could move. Uncle Hayden still cut. It still wasn’t what I wanted. But hearing it from her in sleep, hearing my name held there in whatever small, safe place she had made for me, felt like more than I had any right to ask for.
I carried Helena down the hallway, careful with every step, though my hands knew exactly where to hold her. I pushed her bedroom door with my shoulder and crossed to the bed. When I bent to lay her down, her hand caught at my shirt again.
I eased her onto the mattress and stayed there a second longer, one hand braced near her pillow, the other hovering uselessly because I did not know if I was allowed to touch her hair, her cheek, any part of the life I had already missed too much of.
Then Helena sighed in her sleep and turned toward Snowy, who waited near the pillow. I placed the rabbit beside her.
“There you go, little star,” I whispered.
Edwina stood in the doorway, watching me with an expression I could not name. I did not look at her for long. If I did, I might hate her again. Or want her. Or thank her. Or ask her how thefuck she had survived doing this alone while I was somewhere else, furious at the wrong ghosts.
I pulled the blanket over Helena instead and made myself step back.
Jesus.
I had carried my daughter to bed for the first time.
She had not spoken. She had only watched me with one shoulder against the frame, her face hard to read in the dim light. For a second, neither of us moved. Then I stepped past her, and she followed me back down the hall.
The living room felt different now. Helena’s warmth was gone from it, and what remained was quieter, heavier, meant for us. Edwina crossed to the kitchen counter where the wine I had brought still waited unopened. She picked it up, turned it once in her hands, then glanced at me over her shoulder.
“Well,” she said, “now it’s time for us.”
She opened the wine.
Neither of us said much at first. She poured, handed me a glass, took one for herself, then moved to the sofa. I stayed standing for a moment, watching her under the Christmas lights, the glass between her fingers, her face calm in a way that made my chest tighten for reasons I did not trust. Then I sat across from her.
The wine was good. Dark and dry, too smooth for the shape of the night. Edwina drank first, only a little, then lowered the glass into her lap and looked at it instead of at me.
“There’s something I should have told you a long time ago,” she said.
Every part of me went still. My grip tightened around the glass.
“Say it.”
She let out a breath. “The day I saw you with Alessia in the café…” She stopped, swallowed, then forced herself on. “Later that day, she came to me.”
I did not move.
For one second, I thought I had heard her wrong.
“Came where?”
“To my apartment,” she said, lifting her eyes to mine. There was no softness in them now, only tired truth. “When I heard the door, I thought it might be you. I opened it expecting…” Her mouth tightened. “I don’t even know what I expected. An explanation, maybe. Something. But it was her. Alessia was standing there, and I was so surprised I couldn’t even speak at first. I had no idea how she’d found my address.”
Something black moved under my skin. The air in my lungs turned heavy.
“Tell me exactly what happened.”
Edwina nodded once, though it took her a moment to speak again.
“She was calm at first,” she said. “That was what made it worse. She came in acting as if she had every right to be there, as if I was the one who should feel ashamed for what had happened between you and me.”
My jaw locked.
“Then she started insulting me,” Edwina continued, her voice flatter now, as if she had to strip the emotion out just to get through it. “She said I was humiliating myself over a man who was never going to choose me. She wanted me to understant that in her eyes I was not a real threat, only a stupid girl. Then she told me you would return to the life already waiting for you, and I would be left with nothing except the embarrassment of believing I mattered.”
My hand tightened so hard around the glass I was surprised it did not crack.
