He hummed low in his throat. “So, you mad at her… and you not mad at her.”
“Exactly,” I said. “I’m split down the middle. One side of me wanna file every paper Zahara can draw up and drag her through court ’til she feel all nine years. The other side of me sees her in that bed at three in the morning, shaking, trying not to let me see she scared, and I still wanna protect her.”
“Says the man that broke into her bedroom,” he said dryly.
“I ain’t say I handled it right,” I muttered.
He chuckled. “You never do when your feelings involved.”
That stung ’cause it was true.
“Today at that lot,” I said, staring out at the dark, “watching Zi pick a tree… It hit me. Hard. That’s what I missed. Just regular stuff. Riding in the truck. Listening to her ask a thousand questions. Telling her no about licking pine trees. That’s the shit I can’t get back. I’m supposed to just… accept that?”
“What’s the alternative?” he asked quietly.
I opened my mouth, then shut it. I didn’t have a real answer. Just noise.
He leaned back, the chair creaking. “Son, I’m not gon’ sit here and pretend me and your mama didn’t feel every bit of what you talking about. We had our little private funeral for the years we missed. She cried. I went and beat the hell out of a heavy bag ’tilmy arms wouldn’t move. I wanted to find somebody to blame. Kyleigh. Her people. God. You.”
He let that sit. I flinched.
“But at the end of the day, we came to the same conclusion—staying stuck in ‘what we missed’ ain’t bringing a single moment back. All it does is steal what we still got. And we still got something. We got a chance to know this baby while she still a child. To have her in our kitchen eating too much. To go to her programs, take her on trips, let Ola Kate spoil her rotten. That ain’t nothing.”
I swallowed, looking down at my hands. My fists were tight, ready.
“We chose forgiveness,” he said simply. “Not because what happened was small, but because we’d rather spend the rest of her childhood loving her than the rest of our lives mad at her mama. Me and your mama made that decision together. You gotta make your own.”
“That easy, huh?” I asked, bitter. “Just forgive.”
He shook his head. “Forgiveness ain’t easy. It’s work. It’s a decision you make over and over. But you need a direction first. Right now, you heading nowhere. You got all this anger, all this hurt, and no plan but ‘hit something.’ That might feel good, but it don’t build nothing for Aziza.”
Her name coming out his mouth did something to me. I gripped the railing harder.
“So let me ask you straight,” he said. “You want Kyleigh as your enemy?”
The question landed like a punch. I stared out into the yard. “I don’t know,” I lied.
He gave me that look, the one that saidDon’t try me, boy.
I sighed. “No, I don’t,” I admitted.
“Why not?” he pressed.
“’Cause that’s my daughter’s mama,” I said. “I don’t want Zi growing up having to pick sides. I don’t want her scared to say my name in that house or scared to say Kyleigh’s in mine. I ain’t trying to put her in the middle of a war.”
He nodded. “Good. So you know what youdon’twant. Now, whatdoyou want? Not just with Aziza. With Kyleigh.”
My chest went tight again. “I want access,” I said. “Time. Say-so. I want to be there. I wanna know her schedules, her likes, her fears. I wanna be the one she calls when something break. I want… to be her daddy. For real. Not just on paper.”
“And Kyleigh?” he asked again, slower.
I hesitated, eyes fixed on the darkness. “I don’t know if I can trust her. She kept something that big from me. That’s a whole different level of… I don’t know if we can ever be like we were.”
“I didn’t ask if you could go back,” he said. “I asked how youfeel.”
“That’s the problem. I still feel too much,” I muttered.
He didn’t say anything. The silence felt like pressure.
