The hallway went silent around them.
Nathan swallowed.
“Because I was angry at your dad for something that doesn’t matter anymore,” he said. “And then I was ashamed. And then I waited too long.”
Lily listened.
She had a way of listening that made adults tell the truth or expose themselves trying not to.
“Are you still angry?” she asked.
Nathan shook his head. “No.”
“At Daddy?”
“No.”
“At us?”
His face crumpled. “Never at you.”
Owen emerged slightly.
“Do you like bears?”
Nathan blinked. “Yes.”
“This is Captain.”
Nathan nodded solemnly. “He looks like someone important.”
“He is,” Owen said.
And just like that, a door opened.
Not all the way.
But enough.
Nathan’s presence changed everything.
He was family. Imperfect, late, grieving, but family. He lived in a small house outside Milwaukee, worked as a mechanic, had no children, and had spent the last three years caring for an elderly neighbor as if she were kin. His home study would take time, but Maya seemed cautiously hopeful.
I told myself this was good.
It was good.
Children belonged with people who could tell them where their father learned to ride a bike. Who knew what made him laugh. Who could say, “Your dad hated carrots too,” and make memory into inheritance.
Still, that night, I sat alone in my penthouse and felt something inside me ache with selfish disappointment.
Elise called me out on it the next morning.
“You wanted to keep them,” she said.
“No.”
“Ryker.”
I closed my eyes.
“I wanted them safe.”
“And with you.”
I said nothing.
“That doesn’t make you terrible,” she said. “It makes you attached.”
“They need family.”
“They also need people who love them enough not to turn this into a competition.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
I almost laughed. “You ask that a lot.”
“You require repetition.”
Nathan began supervised visits.
At first, I stayed away from those. It seemed better. Cleaner.
But Lily asked for me.
Then Owen asked whether visits with Uncle Nathan meant visits with Ryker were “all done.”
Maya arranged one shared visit.
It was awkward at first.
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