The world tilted.
I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t move. Couldn’t do anything but stare at this child. This stranger. Who was supposed to be my daughter. She was so much bigger. Taller. The chubby toddler cheeks gone, replaced by the angular features of a girl on the edge of adolescence. She looked like Nicole, blonde and willowy, stunning blue eyes. As a baby, Margot’s eyes had followed me wherever I went. I had been her safe place. Her Papa.
But now those eyes stayed fixed on the floor.
She wore jeans and a purple hoodie, clutching a small rolling suitcase in one hand and a worn stuffed bear in the other. Not Johnny—the gray rabbit my mother had sent her for her first Christmas. She’d carried him everywhere and called him “Zhonny” because she couldn’t pronounce the J yet. Now she held a different toy. One I’d never seen. From a life I didn’t know.
The bear’s fur was matted, its head lolling to one side, like it had been held too tightly for too long. My chest ached. Six years. I’d missed six years. The truth washed over me in sickening waves. She’d learned to read without me. Lost teeth. Started school. Made friends. Had birthdays and Christmases and nightmares and scraped knees and all the thousand small moments that make up a childhood. I hadn’t been there for any of it.
My throat burned. My chest felt crushed from the inside. “Margot,” I managed, my voice cracking on her name. “You’re so grown up.”
She flinched. Actually flinched, as if I’d struck her.
The pain of watching my own daughter recoil from me was worse than anything Nicole had ever done. Worse than the divorce. Worse than losing custody. Worse than six years of silence.
I crouched to her level. “Mon cœur, it’s so good to see you.” I’d called her that since she was a baby. She’d called me Papa.
Nothing. She wouldn’t even look at me.
I wanted to pull her into my arms, breathe in the scent of her hair, feel the weight of her against my chest the way I used to. But I stayed frozen, terrified that, if I moved, she’d run. A single strand of her hair had fallen across her cheek, and every instinct in me screamed to brush it back—but I didn’t dare. And then, a crazy, wayward thought: What happened to that rabbit? As if the answer might somehow fix everything.
“Margot, honey, say hello to your father,” Nicole said brightly, as if she were introducing us at a dinner party.
Margot didn’t look up.
“And this is your grandmother,” Nicole continued. “Vance’s mother. Isn’t that nice she was able to come too?”
Still nothing.
Nicole’s smile tightened. “Margot. Don’t be rude.”
“Hi,” Margot whispered, so quietly I barely heard it.
“Hi, sweetheart,” Mama said gently. “It’s good to see you again. I’ve missed you very much.”
Margot looked up. “You’ve seen me before?”
“Yes, many times. I came to Paris and stayed with you.”
“I don’t remember Paris,” Margot said. “Or you.”
The words cut through me, like a dull knife. She remembered nothing from her old life. Her life with me.
“All right, time to get going.” Nicole knelt down, pulling Margot into a hug that looked more like a photo op than affection. “Mommy’s going to miss you so much. But you’re going to have such a good time with your dad. Remember what we talked about?”
Margot nodded, her small shoulders tense.
“Be good. Don’t make trouble.” Nicole stood, brushing off her jeans. “Oh, I almost forgot.” She grabbed a manila folder from the side table. “Her school records. Immunization forms. That sort of thing. She’s up to date on everything.”
“Thank you,” I managed.
“I’ll see you soon, sweetheart,” Nicole said to Margot.
“When?” Margot asked, peeking up through her lashes.
Nicole’s voice hardened—the way I remembered it. “I told you, I’m not sure. I have to check with Derek about our travel schedule. I told you that five times already.”
“We’ll work it out,” I said gently. “Once you’re settled with me, okay?”
