Chapter 14 - EMILY DID NOT BECOME MY REWARD
When I returned home, people expected romance.
Emily had hidden my daughter.
I had lost years.
We had once loved each other.
Drama demanded reunion.
Life did not.
Emily had built a life without me.
A job managing household operations for a hotel group.
Apartment in Cambridge.
Friends I did not know.
Habits that did not include asking whether Damon Riley approved.
Good.
We became parents together slowly.
School schedules.
Doctors.
Dance classes Lily quit after three weeks.
A disastrous soccer season.
Ordinary things.
One evening Emily asked:
“Do you resent me?”
“For lying?”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes.”
She nodded.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes.”
“That isn't forgiveness.”
“I know.”
She smiled.
That was why co-parenting worked.
No one demanded that understanding erase consequence.
We tried dinner once.
Just us.
It was good.
Then strange.
Then honest.
Emily said:
“I don't want our daughter growing up believing surviving something means you have to turn it into a love story.”
I laughed softly.
“Fair.”
We did not become a couple.
Not then.
Eventually we stopped treating the question as unfinished business.
We were Lily’s parents.
Friends, sometimes.
Former lovers.
That was enough.
One relationship remained unresolved.
Patrick.
My father.
Lily’s grandfather.
He had respected every boundary Emily and I set.
No surprise visits.
No secret gifts.
No messages passed through priests.
For six years.
Then he sent one letter.
To me.
Not Lily.
Inside:
I will not ask to see her.
If she ever wants to know me, tell her the truth first.
All of it.
May you like
Then let her decide.
I folded the letter and placed it beside the wolf coin.
