So I dragged the worst of it back and forced my voice into something Helena could hear.
“Well,” I said, “I’m much better than Uncle Daniel.”
Helena’s eyes widened. “You are?”
“Obviously.”
Edwina made a quiet sound beside us, half warning, half disbelief, but I did not look at her. Helena seemed delighted by the confidence of it.
“Why?”
I lifted the gift bag slightly. “For one thing, I brought a present.”
That did it. Her face lit up so fast it almost knocked the breath out of me. She leaned away from Edwina, already reaching toward the bag with the shameless excitement only a child could get away with.
“Is it for me?”
A laugh slipped out of me before I could stop it. “Yes, little star. It’s for you.”
Edwina glanced at me, amusement softening her mouth. “There,” she murmured. “Now you’ve won her over.”
“Not fully,” I said, watching Helena stretch for the bag. “I’m only getting started.”
The words were for Edwina too, and she knew it. The look she gave me was brief, warm around the edges, but full of warning.
Then Helena looked back at me, her small hands reaching, her dark eyes bright with excitement.
“Uncle Hayden,” she said, “can I open it?”
The title sat wrong in me, smaller than what I wanted. This time, though, it carried trust. Excitement. A child already making room for me in the only way she knew how.
It hurt. Fucking fuck.
But for the first time, it also felt like the beginning of something.
“Yes,” I said, my voice rougher than I meant it to be. “Open it.”
Helena tugged at the tissue paper with complete focus, pulling it free until it rustled around her hands. When she finally lifted the gift out, she gave a small gasp that went straight through me.
It was a white rabbit in a little winter coat, chosen by a man who had no fucking idea what four-year-old girls liked and hated that he had to guess.
Helena stared at it as if I had handed her treasure. “It has a coat,” she whispered.
“It’s cold outside,” I said.
She looked up at me, suddenly serious. “You thought about that?”
Behind me, Edwina shifted. Any other time, I might have missed it, but right then I noticed everything. Helena was looking at me as if my answer mattered.
“Yes,” I said. “I thought.”
That settled it for her. She hugged the rabbit beneath her chin, then studied it with deep concentration. “Her name is Snowy.”
“Already?”
She nodded. “She said so.”
Edwina laughed, and I turned toward the sound before I could stop myself. God, I had missed that laugh. Our eyes met for a second, and something old moved between us before Helena pulled me back.
