“I’ll read to you every night,” he said finally. “If you want. For as long as you want.”
“Even when I’m grown up and probably too old for fairy tales?”
“Even then.”
Maribel backed away from the door before they could discover her eavesdropping. She made her way to her chamber and sat at her dressing table, staring at her own reflection without seeing it.
He’s trying, she thought.Not perfectly. Not with any particular grace. But he’s showing up.
And showing up, she was learning, mattered more than perfection ever could.
She smiled. It seemed that there was hope for him yet.
The hope rose and swelled four days later.
Maribel had been deadheading roses in the garden when she heard the crack of breaking wood, followed immediately by Oliver’s cry. She was moving before conscious thought caught up, her shears dropping forgotten into the grass.
But Thaddeus reached him first.
She came around the oak to find Thaddeus already on his knees, Oliver gathered against his chest, small body shaking with sobs that were more shock than pain. Blood streaked down Oliver’s leg from a nasty scrape, and his face was blotchy with tears.
Maribel slowed. Stopped several feet away, instinct telling her to intervene warring with something else. Some need to see what Thaddeus would do when faced with distress he could not solve through logic or discipline.
“I’ve got you,” Thaddeus murmured, one hand cradling Oliver’s head against his shoulder. The gentleness in his voice stopped Maribel cold. “You’re safe. I’ve got you.”
“It hurts?—”
“I know.” He rocked slightly, the motion unconscious and natural. “But you’re safe now.”
Oliver buried his face against Thaddeus’s neck and cried harder. And Thaddeus simply held him. To her surprise, he made no attempt to quiet the tears or hurry through the distress. Just held him and murmured reassurances until the sobs subsided into hiccupping breaths.
Maribel felt her throat constrict. This was not the man who had sent Oliver away a month ago. Not the man who had equated feeling with weakness and distance with safety.
This was someone different. Someone learning, step by faltering step, how to be present rather than merely correct.
Thaddeus rose with Oliver still in his arms and turned toward the house. He stopped when he saw Maribel standing there.
Their gazes met across the garden. She saw the question in his eyes—had she witnessed this? Did she see what he was trying to become?
She nodded once. Deliberately.
A small smile appeared around his lips at her nod, and he continued toward the house, still murmuring quiet comfort to the child in his arms.
Maribel remained in the garden for several minutes after they left, her heart doing strange things in her chest.
She had demanded proof. Had told him she would judge him by sustained action rather than pretty words. And he was giving her that proof in moments like these—small, imperfect, achingly human moments where he chose connection over control.
It was enough.
More than enough.
It was everything she had hoped he could become.
She rushed back to the house, moving her focus to Oliver’s injury. When she arrived in the nursery, however, it seemed as though the injury was all but forgotten. Thaddeus had tied a cloth around his leg, and Oliver looked rather impressed with it as he spoke, his voice excited.
“Can we go fishing tomorrow?” he asked eagerly. “Thomas says there are trout in the east stream.”
Thaddeus lowered his newspaper. “Fishing.”
