It feels like the kind of night you want to bottle. The kind you don’t dare name in case it vanishes. I help Maggie clear the table, brushing a trail of breadcrumbs into my palm, trying not to look at Malachi. Of course, he’s looking at me. That quiet, unreadable stare of his. Not the hard-edged one he wears in public, but the softer version that peels back skin and sees straight through me. The one that makes me feel exposed and safe at the same time. I’m starting to crave it, even when I hate that I do.
My stomach twists at the thought. I drop my gaze, focus on the plate in my hand. The ceramic is warm from the food, still faintly sticky with peach cobbler. I scrub harder than necessary, chasingthe illusion that I can wash away the weight building under my skin.
James is mid-story, something about East nearly blowing up a carburetor just to prove it can be done. Malachi laughs, loose and unguarded, the sound of it low and real. He doesn’t laugh that way often. Here, though—at this table, in this house—he does. It’s warm here. Safe. Home, I think. I immediately hate how true it feels.
I follow Maggie into the kitchen, our footsteps soft on the worn tile. She moves with the grace of someone who’s done this a thousand times. Cleaning up after other people’s chaos, humming a tune that makes the silence easier to bear. The tune she hums catches something in my chest. A familiar chord I can’t name. My fingers twitch as if reaching for a pen. I almost ask what it is. Almost.
“You know,” she says, rinsing a plate, “I still remember the day your daddy showed up at the shop.”
My breath catches. I’m not ready. The words hit before I can armor up, and the fork in my hand slips, clattering into the sink.
“You do?” My voice comes out thinner than I mean it to.
Maggie doesn’t notice. “Mmhm. Skinny. Sunburned. Looked worn down, like sleep hadn’t touched him in days. Said he needed work, that he had a little girl depending on him.” She smiles, the memory still alive behind her eyes. “You must’ve been six? Maybe seven?”
That tracks. The memories are soft around the edges, blurred the way a photo fades after too long in the sun, but I remember the oil stains on his jeans. The way he lets me sit on the bikes when no one is looking. How he used to call me kiddo like it meant something. Back when he was still my dad.
Before the bottle. The debts. Before he looked at me and saw a ticket out instead of a reason to stay. My throat burns.
“James didn’t like him at first,” Maggie says, stacking another plate. “But he saw how you looked at the bikes. Every part of you wired for it—gas in your veins, steel in your spine. Said any man raising a girl with that kind of fire couldn’t be all bad.”
I let out a breath that scrapes on the way up. “Yeah. Well. Turns out he was worse than bad.”
Maggie glances over, concern blooming in her eyes. “Honey…”
I shake my head before she can finish. “Sorry. I’m not trying to… ruin anything. It’s just—he’s dead. Some days, I still don’t know if I’m mourning the man I wanted him to be or furious at the one he became.”
Maggie moves toward me, drying her hands on a dish towel. Her voice is gentle. “You can be both.”
“I loved him,” I whisper. “Hated him. I still dream about him sometimes. Sitting at the kitchen table, nothing wrong in the world. Then I wake up and remember he tried to sell me, treated me as though I was nothing. As though I wasn’t even his.”
Maggie’s eyes soften. “I know.”
She doesn’t say I’m sorry. Doesn’t offer cheap words. She just stands there, letting me be broken in front of her. A tear slips down before I can stop it. I wipe it away fast, hoping she doesn’t see. She does.
Maybe that’s why she doesn’t stop herself when she says, like it’s just a passing thought, “I always wonder if she left you… or if she gave you up.”
I freeze. The words are soft. Almost accidental. “I know she’s alive.”
Maggie pauses, eyes flicking to mine. “Your dad told you.”
I nod. “Said she walked out. That she wanted nothing to do with me. That she chose power over family. Malachi told me Donovan works with her. What they do to people. What they tried to do to me.”
Maggie hesitates, then sets the towel down. “Then I guess you might already know the rest.”
My pulse stutters. “What rest?”
A pause. “Alice Brighton.”
The name still slices. It always will. My mother. The one I buried in stories. The one I cried for when I was a child.
“You knew her?” I ask, voice small.
“Not well,” she says. “She wasn’t the warm kind. But she came around sometimes. Tall. Straight blonde hair. Eyes cold enough to frost glass. Watched everything. Especially you.” A memory flickers. Sharp nails. Bitter perfume. Cold hands on my shoulders.Don’t embarrass me, Candace.
“She left when you were little,” Maggie adds. “No goodbye. Just gone. We were told she died.”
I swallow and dry my hands on the towel Maggie just used. “That’s what I was told, too. Until my dad finally admitted the truth.”
