"And you found your way out anyway. Despite everything I taught you, everything I showed you, all the wrong paths I led you down." Rick's voice is thick with emotion. "You're stronger than I ever was, Vanna. Stronger than your mother. You got out. You got clean. You're building a life." He gestures at me. "You've got a man who loves you, who stuck by you through all of it. You've got a baby on the way. You've got everything I never had the courage to fight for."
"I almost didn't make it." Vanna's voice is small, vulnerable in a way I rarely hear. "I came so close to dying so many times. There were moments—so many moments—where I thought I wouldn't survive the night."
"But you did. You're here." He reaches across the table, stopping just short of touching her. His hand hovers in the space between them, trembling slightly. "You're here, and you're alive, and I'm so goddamn proud of you I can barely breathe."
Vanna stares at his outstretched hand.
I can see the war in her eyes—the anger and the grief and the desperate, painful hope.
The little girl who wanted her daddy, fighting with the woman who knows what he cost her.
Then she reaches out and takes it.
Rick makes a sound—half sob, half laugh—and holds on like he's afraid she'll disappear.
Like if he lets go, she'll vanish and he'll wake up in his cell alone, realizing it was all a dream.
"I haven't forgiven you," Vanna says quietly. "I don't know if I ever will."
"I know."
"But I'm willing to try. To build something new. Something that isn't just pain and anger and all the ways we've hurt each other."
"That's all I want." His voice breaks. "That's all I've ever wanted."
They sit there, father and daughter, hands clasped across the table.
I watch them and think about my own father—dead in a fire when I was nine, a memory I carry like a scar.
At least Vanna gets this.
At least she gets the chance to rebuild what was broken.
"Tell me about the baby," Rick says after a while. "Tell me everything."
So she does.
She tells him about the pregnancy, about the ultrasound, about the tiny heartbeat on the monitor.
She tells him about the clubhouse, about Tildie and Aunt Ellie and the brothers who've become her family.
She tells him about the rocking chair and the plans for the nursery and the way I talk to her stomach at night, telling the baby stories about motorcycles and the mountains.
She doesn't tell him about Virgil. About the attack. About the bruises hidden under her scarf.
That's not for him. That's for us. For the club.
When visiting hours end, we say our goodbyes.
Rick hugs his daughter for the first time in twelve years—a brief, fierce embrace that leaves them both crying.
"Take care of her," he says to me as they pull apart.
"I will."
"And take care of my grandchild."
"That too."
