Magnolia’s eyes were cloudy but warm. “He kind?” she asked.
The question nearly broke Meadow.
She nodded quickly. “Yeah, Mama. He’s very kind, a kindness I didn’t think came in men anymore…not since Daddy.”
Magnolia smiled faintly. “Then let him stay.”
That sentence hit Meadow right in her chest.
Tears spilled freely.
“I don’t know how,” Meadow admitted. “I don’t know how to let somebody stay without losing myself in the process.”
Magnolia blinked slow, tired. “Maybe…you don’t lose. Maybe…you grow, Marai.”
Meadow covered her mouth with her hand as she cried quietly, shaking from relief and fear and love she didn’t know what to do with. She laid her forehead against Magnolia’s shoulder, breathing her mother in, memorizing the scent of her skin, refusing to miss the moment for what it was…a blessing whispered through fading memory.
After a minute, Magnolia’s breathing steadied again. She drifted back to sleep. Ray had left a while ago, claiming he was going into town to the store, but Meadow knew, he was exhausted too.
Meadow sat up and wiped her face.
“I wish you could meet him the way he really is,” she whispered, “the way he makes everything feel possible.”
She brushed Magnolia’s hair back gently.
“…and I wish I wasn’t so scared of being happy.”
Meadow sat with her mother until the room dimmed into late evening light. Then she stood slowly, kissed Magnolia’s forehead, and walked out.
She found Zaire waiting in the hallway, leaning against the wall with his arms folded. He wasn’t pretending he hadn’t heard. His eyes were too soft for that, too steady in that way only men who truly cared looked at a woman.
Meadow didn’t say anything.
She didn’t have to.
Zaire stepped forward and lifted her chin with both hands, wiping the remnants of her tears with his thumbs. Something inhis touch felt like a promise she didn’t know how to accept yet. He brushed a curl from her cheek. “You okay?” he asked.
She opened her eyes but didn’t trust her voice. She nodded instead, then shook her head, then nodded again, fighting tears like they were enemies she could outrun. “I feel so bad…like I was just living a good life and now, there’s a little bit of me mad that I came back.”
Meadow braced both palms against the wall because if she didn’t hold something, she wasn’t sure she wouldn’t fall apart. The air around her felt tight, heavy, almost sour from the weight of everything she had been trying to swallow whole these past few years.
“I know that’s wrong,” she whispered, “but it’s the truth.”
Zaire didn’t move, didn’t interrupt. He just watched her with that patient focus that made his silence feel solid.
Meadow pressed a shaking hand to her chest, as if holding her ribcage together. “People don’t talk about what it feels like to be the first daughter, the only child. They think it’s an honor…they think it’s strength, but it’s responsibility and guilt, and growing up faster than you ever wanted to because everybody’s needs get stacked on your back before you even know who you are.”
Her eyes glistened. “Nobody ever tells you how heavy it gets…carrying a whole family with no backup, being the designated strong one…the automatic caregiver…the person everybody expects to show up even when you barely hanging on yourself.”
She coughed on her tears. “I love my Mama. I love my Daddy. I’d die for them. But there’s a part of me that resents how my life doesn’t feel like mine anymore, a part of me that feels selfish for wanting a break, a part of me that feels evil for wishing somebody else could step in for once.”
“And then there’s the kind of guilt that doesn’t have a language. The kind that sits behind your ribs and won’t leave. The kind that reminds you…if something goes wrong, it’s on you. If something falls apart, it’s your fault. If you step away, even for a moment, bad things happen. So, you learn not to step away at all.”
More tears slid down her cheek and she pushed them out the way. “That’s what it feels like to be the first daughter,” Meadow whispered. “You don’t get to choose your life. You inherit it.”
Zaire listened to every word. He didn’t blink…didn’t shift his weight…didn’t look away. He held her gaze like he wasn’t afraid of the pain sitting behind her eyes.
When she finally fell silent, something in him cracked too.
