My throat burned. “They served me papers.”
“I know,” he said with a gentleness I hadn’t heard in a long time. “Those papers don’t mean shit though, Em. The photos and filings are all a narrative. They are hoping this will scare Noah into giving them what they want. And Noah has competent people in his corner.”
“And me?” I asked quietly. “Am I really… a problem?”
His answer came without hesitation. “No. Of course you’re not.”
The word was firm. Absolute. Warmth filled me at my dad’s confidence in the answer. I was so used to making myself smaller, to make everyone else’s life easier. Always the peace maker. I’d always felt like a problem to him, so him saying I wasn’t felt good.
“You’re a variable,” he said. “And they don’t like variables they can’t control. You don’t fit neatly into the picture they want to paint, so they’re trying to erase you from it. Again, I’m not surprised. Plus, while I’m not relating to them, I do know that grief does weird things to people. It can make them…not be themselves.”
I swallowed hard. He didn’t need to say it. We all knew what he meant. He had cheated on my mom after her stroke, something I still couldn’t grasp how. My dad kissed the back of my mom’s hand, and she smiled at him. It wasn’t the full smile she used to do, since half her smile was still a little off.
“If I can say something,” my mom interrupted, her voice soft and gentle. “Not that I’m saying Noah should forgive his parents for how they are acting, but he should talk to them. I can’t imagine what it’d be like losing a child. It would shatter my existence. I wouldn’t know how to be, and maybe, this is them handling grief in the worst way possible.”
“She’s right.” My dad smiled at her again, kissing her shoulder.
I scrubbed my hands over my face, completely torn between what was right or wrong here. But seeing my parents like this? A total team? Affectionate? I knew they’d been working on their relationship and therapy since the stroke, but I rarely came home. Seeing them this forgiving of each other…It healed something in me that had been broken for years.
“I want to reassure you, Em, that you leaving wasn’t wrong.” My dad reached over and squeezed my hand now. “You left because you’re ethical and care about the kid more than yourself. That says a lot about you.” His voice softened. “That’s not instability, Em. That’s integrity.”
My mom squeezed my hand, her eyes shining. “You’ve always done that,” she said. “Taken on weight that wasn’t yours because you thought it was kinder.”
The tears came again, slower this time, heavier. “It doesn’t feel fair. I was happy. I love him and Miles. I just?—"
My dad leaned forward, elbows on the table. “Let me help.’
I looked at him. “How?”
“We do this cleanly,” he said. “We separate facts from fear. We document your business properly. We make sure your finances, housing, and operations are airtight. We show that you’re stable, established, and not some impulsive presence they can point at.” He paused. “And if Noah wants my help, I’ll give it. But it’s up to him.”
The words settled into me slowly, like something solid forming where panic had been.
“You’d do that?” I asked.
He nodded once. “I’ve been hard on you,” he said. “I’ve confused caution with control more times than I want to admit. And my therapist says that I might be overcompensating for letting you down for those formative years. I tend to…go overboard to try to make up for things, and that can actually hurt you.” He sighed as my mom patted his back. “Progress, right, honey?”
“Yes, it’s good you admit it,” she said, her voice kind.
“Em,” he said, staring at me with an intense expression. “I will not stand by while someone uses my daughter as leverage in a fight she didn’t start. And, hey, look at me.”
I did.
“I am sorry for not believing you. Believing in you. You’re amazing, Em, and I’ll work on gaining your trust back.”
I didn’t forgive him in that moment, but I believed him.
My throat tightened, and I had to swallow twice to get anything to move past the lump sitting there. The apology hung in the air like something fragile, like if I breathed wrong it would shatter and we’d go back to not speaking and pretending we didn’t miss each other. My dad didn’t look away, didn’t try to fill the silence with explanations or excuses. He let it be there.
My mom stood and came around the table, pressing a kiss to the top of my head the way she used to when I was little and terrified of thunderstorms. The gesture wasn’t dramatic, but it cracked something open in me anyway. I leaned into her without thinking, and for a second I let myself be a daughter again instead of a woman trying to hold everyone together with shaking hands. Sassy sighed at my feet like she approved.
“Okay,” I whispered, because anything louder felt like it would cause another crying fest. I wiped my cheeks, then looked at my dad, forcing the words out before my fear could talk me out of them. “What’s the first step? Like—actual step. Not vague ‘we’ll handle it.’ What do we do tomorrow?”
My dad nodded once, the way he did when he finally committed to something. “Tomorrow we gather everything,” he said, already slipping into calm, methodical mode. “Everymessage. Dates, times, names, where they showed up. You write it down while it’s fresh. We make copies. We start a timeline.” He glanced at my mom. “And we’re going to get you a consult with a family law attorney who does guardianship disputes, because I’m not walking into that courtroom pretending my contract background makes me an expert.”
My chest loosened a fraction at that—at the humility. At the fact he wasn’t trying to be the hero, just trying to be useful. “And the shop?” I asked, because my brain always ran to work when my heart hurt. “Because that’s the other thing they said. That I’m unstable because it’s chaos right now.”
“We fix that too,” he replied, like the answer was simple even if the work wasn’t. “We get your LLC paperwork, operating agreement, business insurance, payroll records, invoicing—everything organized. Not because you owe anyone proof you’re stable, but because doing that is smart, and it protects you.” His voice softened slightly. “And because if they’re going to point at you, we’re going to hand them a file so clean it makes them look fucking ridiculous.”
