He leaned back against his desk, arms crossed. The gesture was so controlled that it was violent. "Let me understand this. You think you have the right to step into Elena's role? To sit in her chair?"
The accusation was a lash. "No!" The word burst out of me, too loud. "No, Jack. That's not what this is. I don't want to replace her. No one could. Ever. I just..." I scrambled for the right framing. "I want to help the work continue. For the kids who need it. Margaret and the staff are still there. They're the heart. I could just be... an extra pair of hands. A voice for the storytimes."
He studied me, his gaze like an X-ray. "Why?" he asked, the single syllable loaded. "Why would you want to? Why would you subject yourself to being surrounded by her ghost every day?"
The truth was a raw, bleeding thing. I had no polished answer.
"Because I can't bring her back." The words scraped my throat. "I can't undo my silence. I can't fix the mistake I’ve made, staying in that car."
His face steadied, and his brow slightly furrowed. I saw his hands clench at his sides.
"I can't give Daisy her mother or give you your wife." My voice broke, but I pushed on. "But that place, what she built, it's still here. It's still doing good for others."
I took a shaky breath.
"Maybe helping it survive, helping a little piece of what she loved keep going... maybe that's the only way I can ever try to make any of it right. Even a fraction. Even if it's just by reading a book to a child who needs to hear a story."
The silence that followed was unsettling.
He turned away from me and walked to the window. Stood there with his back to me, hands in his pockets, staring out at the city lights. A minute passed. Then another. I could hear my own heartbeat, my own shallow breathing.
Was he going to answer? Was he waiting for me to leave?
I stood there, feeling exposed and hollow, every nerve ending raw. Waiting for the verdict. Waiting for the cold, logical demolition of my ridiculously painful hope.
Finally, after what felt like hours but was probablyonly minutes, he spoke. His voice was low, devoid of any readable emotion.
"I'll think about it."
That was all. Not a yes. No furious denial. No acknowledgment of my confession. No indication of which way he was leaning.
It was a stay of execution. A tiny crack in the wall. Or maybe just a polite way of saying no.
"Okay." I could barely get any words out. "Thank you."
He still didn't turn around. The conversation was clearly over.
I turned and left, pulling the door shut softly behind me.
Once in the hallway, with the door closed between us, the adrenaline deserted me.
My knees buckled. I leaned back against the cool wall and slid down until I was sitting on the floor, hidden from view if anyone walked by. My hands were shaking so badly that I had to press them against the hardwood to keep them still.
What had I just done?
I'd asked the man who'd engineered my entire life for the last nine months, who blamed me for his wife's death, I'd asked him to let me help run his late wife's foundation.
I wrapped my arms around my knees and let the tremors take over.
I had just laid my broken, guilty heart on his deskand asked him to trust me with the most sacred relic of his grief.
It was either the bravest thing I had ever done or the most spectacularly self-destructive. The line between the two had never felt thinner or more terrifyingly easy to cross.
From behind Jack's closed door, I heard a sound. Low. Muffled.
It took me a moment to recognize it.
Jack Spencer was crying.
