“You’re overthinking,” I muttered to myself.
Still, I didn’t put it back.
Because the tranquility she brought into my home hadn’t felt like pressure. It hadn’t felt like a replacement. It felt like relief. Like something easing instead of breaking.
At the register, I hesitated again.
Maybe it crossed a line. Maybe she’d laugh. Maybe it meant more than I was ready to admit. But what if it meant something deeper, something I wasn’t sure I was prepared for? The idea of changing what we had into something undefined, with all its potential joy and risk, made my heart race.
But then I pictured Harper asleep on Dani’s shoulder. Peaceful. Safe. I pictured the way Dani never flinched when Harper asked questions that didn’t have easy answers. The way she didn’t try to erase the past.
Or mine.
I grabbed the candle. Added a box of sea-salt caramels, because I’d caught her sneaking them once from Harper’s ice cream toppings, and paid before I could talk myself out of it.
When the cashier handed me the bag, I caught my reflection in the glass. Scruff too long. Dark circles that never quite faded. A man who’d learned how to survive without letting himself want.
But there was something else there too.
A softness I didn’t recognize.
I slipped the candle into my carry-on.
In a few hours, I’d be home.
Harper would squeal. Dani would laugh. And maybe, if I didn’t screw it up, I’d find the right moment to tell her what I’d been carrying since the night I’d seen her there on the dance floor.
That she hadn’t just taken care of my daughter.
She’d brought warmth back into a house that had been surviving on memory and habit.
And somehow… without asking for it—
She might have brought me back, too.
???
The driveway came into view just as the sun dipped low enough to turn the windows gold.
I slowed without meaning to.
There were balloons. Pink, gold, and white balloons tied in hurried knots to the mailbox, bobbing in the breeze. A banner stretched across the front porch, crookedly.
WELCOME HOME
My chest tightened so fast it stole the air from my lungs.
I killed the engine and sat there for a second, hands gripping the steering wheel like the ground might tilt if I let go. The houselooked different like this—alive in a way it hadn’t in years. Loud in the best sense. Expectant.
The front door flew open before I could even open my car door.
“DAD!”
Harper barreled down the porch steps, her sneakers flashing pink as she ran. Dani followed more carefully, laughing, one hand already up like she knew what was coming.
Harper hit me at full speed.
I caught her, the impact knocking the breath out of me as she wrapped herself around my neck. “You’re home. You’re home forever!” she yelled, gripping me tightly, her excitement vibrating in the air around us.
