Stella was sitting on Margo’s garden wall when Tyler walked up, her face blotchy in a way that made his stomach drop.
“Hey.” He stopped in front of her, not sure if he should touch her, hug her, give her space. Parenting was a constant guessing game. “What happened?”
“She wants me to leave with her.” Stella’s voice was flat, wrung out. “She said pack my things.”
“She can’t?—”
“I know she can’t. Not really. But she’s going to try.” Stella looked up at him, eyes red. “She found out about the driver’s license. That was the trigger. It’s about everything. Me being here. Me choosing this. Me choosing you.”
Tyler sat down on the wall beside her. The stones were warm from the sun, rough under his palms.
“Tell me what she said.”
So Stella told him. The phone call, the confrontation, the accusations about secret lives and erased mothers and fathers who didn’t earn anything. Tyler listened without interrupting, feeling something build—not the familiar weight of swallowing his words, but something different. Something that had been waiting for exactly this moment.
“She said you showed up when it was convenient,” Stella finished. “That you didn’t earn this.”
Tyler was quiet for a moment. Then he stood up.
“Where is she?”
Stella blinked. “Inside, but Tyler— you don’t have to?—”
“Yeah. I do.”
He looked down at his daughter—this fierce, stubborn, impossible person who had spent sixteen years fighting her own battles. “You shouldn’t have to. Not anymore.”
Stella looked at him — really looked at him. Something shifted in her face. Not surprise exactly. More like recognition. Like she was seeing something she’d hoped for but hadn’t been sure was real.
“Don’t let her make you feel small,” she said quietly. “You’re not small. Not to me.”
Tyler kissed the top of her head — something he’d done when she was little, something he hadn’t done in years. Then he walked through Margo’s garden gate and up to the front door.
He didn’t knock.
Fiona was in the living room, standing by the window. She turned when he came in, and her face went through several expressions — surprise, defensiveness, and something that might have been fear.
Good.
“Tyler—”
“No.” He held up a hand. “You don’t get to talk first. Not this time.”
Fiona’s mouth closed.
Tyler stood in the middle of Margo’s living room, surrounded by his grandmother’s furniture and his grandmother’s art and fifty years of family history, and felt something shift. Something that had been crouched and waiting finally stood up.
“All these years,” he said. “Years of following your rules. Don’t tell your family. Don’t visit too often. Don’t make waves, don’t push back, don’t ask for more than you were willing to give. I did everything you asked because I was terrified—terrified—that if I didn’t, you’d disappear. Take her somewhere I couldn’t find her. Cut me out completely.”
Fiona’s face was pale. “I never would have?—”
“You threatened it. Every time I pushed back, you threatened it. And I believed you. So I took what I could get. Two weeks a year. Phone calls that felt like interviews. A daughter who barely knew me because you made sure she didn’t.”
“That’s not fair?—”
“None of this is fair. None of it.” Tyler’s voice was rising now, but he didn’t try to control it. “You want to talk about earning things? You want to tell Stella that I didn’t earn the right to be her father? I’ve been trying to earn it since the day you told me about her, Fiona. Against every obstacle you put in my way.”
“I was protecting her?—”
