David is standing on my porch, looking like a man who’s been holding himself together through sheer force of will and is approximately three seconds from collapse. His tie is loosened, his hair disheveled, and there’s a tightness around his eyes that speaks to hours of suppressed panic.
“Hi,” he says. “I’m sorry it took so long. The meeting ran over, and then there was paperwork, and?—”
“It’s fine. Come in.”
He steps inside, and I watch him take in my space—the cluttered bookshelves, the half-finished puzzle on the coffee table, the comfortable chaos of a life lived alone. It’s nothing like what I imagine his world looks like. No designer furniture, noprofessional cleaning service. Just a woman’s home, worn soft around the edges.
“Where is she?”
“Guest room. She fell asleep about an hour ago.” I lead him down the hallway, stopping at the doorway. My dog lifts his eyes, but doesn’t move, too busy being a little girl’s comfort. “She had a rough afternoon. We talked, she cried. I tried to explain what’s happening, but...” I shake my head. “I’m not sure I understand it well enough to explain it to an eight-year-old.”
David stands in the doorway, looking at his daughter’s sleeping form, and something in his expression cracks.
“What did you tell her?”
“That I didn’t know why Kelsie was back. That sometimes grown-ups make choices they regret.” I pause. “Was that wrong?”
“No.” His voice is rough. “It’s better than anything I’ve come up with.”
He doesn’t move from the doorway. Just stands there, shoulders rigid, jaw tight.
“Do you want some tea?” I offer. “You look like you could use a minute before you wake her.”
He nods without speaking and follows me to the kitchen. I put the kettle on and lean against the counter while he stands next to the table.
“My father called this morning,” he says. “Right before the school did. Kelsie filed a petition to have her parental rights reinstated. She’s claiming she was coerced into signing them away.”
“Can she do that?”
“Apparently. She’s arguing postpartum depression, mental incompetence, undue pressure from my father when he drew up the paperwork.” His hands clench on the table. “And then—not even an hour later—she shows up at Michaela’s school trying totake her. Like filing the petition wasn’t enough. Like she had to prove she was serious by traumatizing our daughter in person.”
“David—”
“I’ve done everything right.” His voice cracks. “Every school event. Every bedtime story. Every nightmare and scraped knee, and bad day. I rearranged my entire career so I could be home for dinner. And now Kelsie gets to waltz back in because she ‘got healthy’ and ‘deserves a second chance’?” He laughs, but there’s no humor in it. “What about Michaela’s chance? What about her stability? Kelsie wasnevergood to her. God, I always knew she was selfish. But I never thought she’d be?—”
“The court will see what kind of father you are.”
“Will they?” He’s shaking now, his voice rising as he paces the small dining room. “Because all Kelsie has to do is claim mental health reasons and show off her fancy new husband, and talk about how she’s changed, and suddenly she’s the sympathetic one. Suddenly I’m the villain who ‘kept her from her child.’”
“You’re not a villain. Anyone who knows you?—”
“I didn’t keep her from anything, Nora. I begged. She left. She chose to leave. Didn’t even want to care for Michaela as a baby…” He stops moving and leans against the wall, eyes wet, and I realize with a start that he’s close to tears. “God, maybe she did have postpartum. But that doesn’t excuse whatshe did.And now some judge who’s never met my daughter gets to decide whether Kelsie deserves access to the life she threw away. To the child she neglected and put in harm’s way…”
“David.” I move toward him without thinking. “You’re not going to lose her.”
“You don’t know that.” His voice breaks completely. “You don’t know what it’s like to have everything you love threatened by someone who already proved she doesn’t care. To wake up every morning terrified that today’s the day it all falls apart.”
“You’re right. I don’t know.” I’m standing in front of him now, close enough to see the exhaustion etched into every line of his face. “But I know Michaela. I know how she talks about you—’my dad says’ this and ‘my dad thinks’ that. You’re her whole world. Anyone can see that.”
“It might not be enough.” His breath catches, and then the composure he’s been clinging to all day finally shatters—not into sobs, but into something rawer. Frustrated tears, the kind that come from anger and helplessness and loving someone so fiercely it physically hurts. “What if… What if she wins? What if she takes her and hurts her and… and I’m not there?” He drops his head against the wall. “Fuck.”
I touch his shoulder—intending only to anchor him, to remind him he’s here and not lost out in some recollection of the past—but my fingers linger, and in the silence he looks down at me, his expression splintered. I don’t know if he means to, or if I do, but the space between us narrows like a closing suture, and suddenly he grabs my face with both hands and kisses me.
It’s not gentle. It’s desperate, almost frantic—a man grasping for something solid while everything else spins out of control. His lips are warm and firm, and for one suspended moment I forget every professional boundary I’ve ever set, every rule I’ve built my career on.
I kiss him back.
His hands tremble against my jaw, and I realize with a clear, clinical detachment that David isn’t clinging to me—he’s falling, and I’m simply what he grabs on the way down. His mouth is hungry, searching, the scrape of stubble an abrasion against my cheek. The taste of him—salt, bitterness, whatever he’s been holding in all day—jolts through me, sharper than the first shock of cold after a swim.
