"Of course," I said.
"Always," he echoed, the word a vow.
We stayed like that until her breathing evened out and her grip went slack in sleep. Gently, I extracted myself, laying her down and pulling the covers up. Jack remained kneeling, watching her, his profile etched with pain in the dim light.
We crept out, leaving the door ajar. In the hallway, the exhaustion hit me. I leaned against the wall.
Jack stood a few feet away, his posture rigid. He stared at the closed door. The silence stretched, thick and uncomfortable.
Jack opened his mouth, but spoke nothing and closed it.
His face showed he was going through many stages of thought. The obvious 'thank you' that should have come, that any normal person would have said, was stuck somewhere in the battle between his gratitude and his pride. Between admitting he needed my help and maintaining that I was just the employee.
Finally, he spoke, not looking at me. His voice waslow, gruff. "You got her calm." It wasn't gratitude. It was a stark observation, an admission of his own failure.
"She just needed to feel safe," I said quietly.
"A thing I could not provide." The self-loathing was back, sharp with frustration.
"It's different," I offered, treading carefully. "I'm not... I'm not the one she's afraid of losing. It's less loaded."
He turned his head then, his gray eyes piercing. "Don't." The word was a warning. "Don't therapize me. Or her. Just... do the job."
The rebuff was cold, a deliberate retreat behind the employer-employee wall. It stung more than it should have. I'd just held his daughter through a nightmare, and he couldn't even let me acknowledge the obvious.
But I understood it. Accepting my help was one thing. Accepting my insight was a vulnerability too far.
The guilt I carried surged up, needing to say something. "Jack... about Elena. I'm so?—"
"Stop." He cut me off, his voice a whip-crack. He took a step closer, and I saw the conflict warring in his eyes, the need to talk battling the need to hate. He looked away. "If you're going to be here... around my daughter... You should know. Not about the accident, but who she was. So you don't fill in the blanks with your own ghosts."
He turned and walked toward the living room. I followed.
He stood at the window, his back to me, a silhouetteagainst the pre-dawn gray. For a long moment, he said nothing. I thought maybe he'd changed his mind.
Then: "She was a kindergarten teacher. Did I mention that?"
I shook my head and realized he couldn't see me. "No."
"She started a foundation. Bright Pages. Gave books to kids in underserved schools. Kids who wouldn't have them otherwise." His voice was robotic, recited, like he was reading from a company brief. "She believed..." He paused. "She believed in fixing broken things. Making them useful again."
The words 'broken things' revolved around my head. Was that how he saw me? A broken thing Elena would have tried to fix? Or was he talking about himself?
"I'm shutting it down. The foundation. The board sends reports. I can't open them. It's... noise." He swallowed hard. "The last event she asked me to attend, I was overseas. A merger. I told her... next time."
The regret was a living thing in the room. "You can't—” I tried to swallow the knot in my throat from seeing his grief, “You just can’t blame yourself for that," I said softly.
He spun around, his eyes blazing. "Why not? Everyone else seems to get a pass for their choices that night. Why shouldn't I examine mine?" It was an accusation, sharp and directed.
He looked away, the fire dying, replacedby weary defeat. "I live in the 'maybes.' Maybe if I'd been here more. Maybe if I'd..." He trailed off, shaking his head.
He was silent for a long moment, staring out at the lightening sky. I could almost see him wrestling with a decision.
"Daisy should see it." He turned to face me. "The foundation. Before I shut it down. She should know it existed. That her mother built something that mattered."
A pause.
"You'll take her." Not a question. An order, but one layered with something painful and raw.
