When I stop, the room claps like it’s afraid to scare the moment away. I close the fallboard and slide off the office chair. Lexy meets me halfway, arms folded, mouth fighting a grin.
“You didn’t tell me he had a soft spot for kids,” I say, a little breathless.
“Oh, he’s a terror on grown men,” she answers, eyes dancing, “but the littles? Yeah. Heart the size of this building. He pretends he’s just keeping order. He’s really building a world.”
My chest swells, embarrassingly obvious. “He’d make a good father,” slips out before I can stop it.
“Hmm.” I take the grunt as Lexy-styled approval as she eyes me.
When I look over at Raffael, he’s crouched again, showing Nick how to reset a chair without smashing fingers. Mason watches and copies on his own, trying not to be seen trying. My throat burns, and not from sadness this time.
He isnothinglike Roberto.
We linger, we help pass juice boxes, we promise to come back. On the way out, the little girl whispers, “Don’t forget,” and I tell her I won’t.
Just then, the sun catches on something I had completely forgotten. The oversized diamond ring and wedding band Roberto gave me. The only times I ever took them off were to have them cleaned. Roberto made sure of it. I've grown so used to them that I forgot they were there. His claim. They're probably worth a couple of million dollars, but to me, they're nothing but baggage. Shiny rocks that deceived me into believing a lie for a few months. A shackle for years to come. I pull them off and hand them to Lexy, who stares at me, speechless for the first time since I've known her. "Sell them. Use the money for the shelter."
Lexy looks at Raf, who shrugs. I know him well enough to hear the thought in his silence: how ironic that, in death, Roberto will be paying to shelter the very women he hurt and sold.
The truck pulls away, and after a short drive, the city gives way to trees in a slow dissolve. For a while, we don’t talk. We don’t need to.
“Thank you,” I say at last.
“For what?”
“For being exactly who you were in there.”
He keeps his eyes on the road. The corner of his mouth tilts. “You liked that side of me?”
“I did.”
Silence encompasses us once again for a few more miles. Then, “You know,” he says quietly, “when I was a kid… I used to wish for a place like that.”
I turn in my seat. “The shelter?”
He nods. “Yeah. People think a roof and a full fridge fix it all. The DeSantises—” The way he says his adoptive parents' name mirrors his divided emotions for them. “—were good people. Just… not mine. I ate. I slept. I stayed out of the way. That was the deal.”
He blows out a breath, eyes still on the road. “I don’t have a birth certificate. No original name anyone would say out loud. Carlos handed me to a soldier and his wife and said,Raise him. He’ll be useful. They tried in their way. She made sure I had a coat in winter. He made sure I knew how to mow a lawn straight. Their real kids got the fridge drawings and the birthday candles. I got the chores list and the spare room that smelled like mothballs.”
He’s not complaining, he's just telling me his story, and I listen. “I remember this one night,” he goes on. “I was… seven? Maybe. They had a family night, board games, popcorn—something small but theirs. I sat on the stairs, ‘cause they told me to give them space. I could see the TV light flicker under the door. I could hear them laughing. I wasn’t mad. Just… outside. Every sound in that house told me I was a noise. Not a note.”
My fingers find his sleeve. I don’t interrupt.
“I would’ve picked the shelter,” he says, voice rougher now. “Honest rules. Someone who knows your name because they read it on a form and decided you were their problem on purpose. A door that shuts at night because safety’s a policy, not a privilege. One adult who looks you in the eye and asks,What’s your favorite color?Not because it matters… but because you do.”
He swallows. The road hums. “I didn’t need perfect. I just needed to be chosen.”
I press my palm to his forearm, feel the tight rope of muscle loosen under my touch. “You deserved to be chosen,” I assure him. “You deserved to be wanted.”
His mouth twists like the words hurt and heal at the same time. “Sometimes I think about the kid version of me,” he says. “Sitting on those stairs. If I could go back, I’d tell him to hang on. That one day, he’ll build the house where the kids come first. That one day a woman will sit at a beat-up piano and make the air soft, and he’ll get to be the kind of man who tells twoboys to breathe instead of breaking up a fight with his fists.”
I can’t speak for a few seconds. The trees blur. My eyes do too.
“I saw you,” I manage. “With them. I saw the father you’ll be.”
He glances at me then, quick, like the look is something precious he can’t afford to hold too long. “Is that what you want?” he asks, quietly. No pressure. Just the truth of a question.
The word rises without panic. “Yes.”
