It was planning a future.
The thought should've terrified me.
It didn't.
That terrified me more.
I opened her fridge—small, organized, full of practical things like eggs and butter and vegetables that looked like they'd been bought with intention. There was a jar of raspberry jam on the shelf, homemade by the look of it, with a handwritten label that saidMomma'sin looping script.
I pulled out eggs. Butter. Cheese. Bell pepper.
My hands moved on autopilot, the way they did when I was field-stripping a weapon or packing a go-bag. Muscle memory. Efficiency.
But this wasn't survival.
This was ... care.
I cracked eggs into a bowl, whisked them with more focus than they deserved, and tried not to think about the fact that Joy might be pregnant.
Tried not to think about how that thought—the one that should've sent me running—didn't scare me the way it should have.
Where the hell did that come from?
An image flashed through my mind—my mother, smiling. Not the tired smile she'd worn near the end, when grief and raising seven boys alone had worn her down to something sharp and fragile. The real smile. The one from before.
Before my father left.
Before everything fell apart.
I shoved the thought away hard, focusing on the pan heating on the stove, the butter sizzling as it melted.
My mother.
The rock of our family. The only reason any of us survived after Dad poofed into whatever hole he'd been sucked into. She'd held us together with sheer will and love so fierce it burned.
Her death had been the final dagger in my flagging soul.
The thing that turned me from functional to something darker. Something colder.
I poured the eggs into the pan, added cheese and peppers, focused on the simple mechanics of folding an omelet instead of the hollow ache in my chest.
Two omelets. Toast with raspberry jam. And—because I couldn't help myself—a daisy plucked from the jar on the windowsill, laid across one of the plates like an apology I didn't know how to say out loud.
When I carried the plates into the bedroom, Joy was awake.
Propped up against the pillows, blonde hair loose and tangled, wearing nothing but the sheet pulled up to her chest. She looked soft. Sleepy. Beautiful in a way that made my throat tight.
When she saw the plates, she smiled.
That smile.
It hit me like a gut punch.
"Breakfast in bed?" she said, eyes lighting up. "I've never had breakfast in bed."
I set the plates down carefully on the bed between us. "Never?"
"Well," she amended, "not since I got strep throat in fifth grade and my momma took care of me for two days. But that doesn't really count."
