Chapter Fourty Nine

Jake

The moment I turn the key in the front door, the sound that hits me nearly undoes me.

“Daddy!”

Ethan’s little voice carries through the hall, high pitched and desperate, and before I can even step inside fully, he barrels toward me, all arms and legs and tears. I barely manage to drop my bag before he crashes into me.

I scoop him up instinctively, pressing his small body against mine. His arms wrap around my neck so tightly it almost hurts. I close my eyes, breathing him in the faint scent of baby shampoo, the warmth of him. My son.

“Where were you?” he whimpers into my shoulder, his voice muffled. “I had a bad dream and you weren’t here. Mommy said you were busy, but I wanted you.”

My throat burns, guilt clawing its way up my chest. I rub his back in slow circles, trying to soothe him. “I’m sorry, buddy. I should have been here.” The words feel hollow even as I say them. Because I wasn’t here. I was across town in another house, with another pair of children laughing at me like I belonged to them.

Ethan pulls back, his big brown eyes glassy with tears. “Are you gonna leave again?”

The question guts me. He is too young to understand why his father sometimes disappears, why his parents fight behind closed doors, why there’s always this invisible wall between us. I want to tell him no. I want to promise him I’ll never leave again. But my chest tightens with the weight of a truth I can’t give him.

I kiss his forehead instead. “Not tonight. Tonight, I’m all yours.”

His lips curl into a small smile, and it almost kills me. How can something so simple, so pure, make me feel so damned torn apart?

“Ethan, let Daddy put his bag down,” Amina’s voice floats in from the living room, cool and clipped. When I look up, she is standing in the doorway, arms crossed, her expression perfectly composed. The picture of a wife waiting for her husband. Except I know better. Her jaw is too tight, her eyes too sharp. She’s holding back the storm for Ethan’s sake, not mine.

I set Ethan down gently, ruffling his hair. “Go show me your new drawing, champ. I’ll be right there.”

He nods eagerly and scampers off, leaving me and Amina alone.

“You look tired,” she says flatly, her eyes scanning me from head to toe. “Rough night?”

I meet her gaze, searching for some softness, but there’s none. Only suspicion and contempt carefully disguised under civility. “You already know it was.”

Her lips twitch, a ghost of a smile that isn’t a smile at all. “Do I?”

I don’t answer. Instead, I drop onto the armchair by the fireplace, running a hand through my hair. The silence between us stretches, thick and suffocating.

Finally, she moves closer, perching on the arm of the sofa like she owns the whole room. Which, in a way, she does. “So tell me,” she says casually, though her tone is sharp as a blade. “How is Kyla? And her children.”

I flinch despite myself. She notices. Of course she notices.

“They are fine.” The word feels foreign in my mouth. Fine doesn’t cover the way Elias stared at me like he already knew me. Fine doesn’t cover the way Chanel giggled at breakfast, clutching her mother’s hand like it was the safest thing in the world. Fine doesn’t cover how I nearly forgot Ethan existed for a second when I looked at Elias and saw my own childhood staring back.

“Fine,” Amina repeats, her mouth curling. “And you thought it appropriate to let them stay at our country house. Without asking me first huh?”

“She needs help Amina, she us your sister for crying out loud, those kids are your nephew and niece,” I say, sharper than I mean to. “She can’t even walk right now. What was I supposed to do? leave her stranded in a hospital bed with no one to take care of her?”

“You were supposed to think about your family,” Amina hisses, her mask slipping for just a moment. “Your wife. Your son. Not the girl who ran from you years ago and shows up now with two children she expects you to what? Rescue? Provide for?”

Her words hang in the air, poisonous. And damn me, damn me, but they hit the exact place I’ve been trying to ignore. Because I am thinking about them. About those kids. About how Elias’s smile is my smile. About how much Kyla’s daughter looks like her when she was younger, soft eyes and quiet strength.

And it terrifies me.

I lean forward, elbows on my knees, burying my face in my hands. The silence stretches again, broken only by the sound of Ethan’s little voice down the hall, singing to himself as he colors.

What am I doing?

I have a son who needs me, a wife who whether I like to admit it or not has built her entire world around the version of me she wants. And yet all I can think about is Kyla’s children. The way Elias grinned at me like he’d been waiting for me his whole life.

The way it felt so natural to watch them play.

I can’t stop comparing. Ethan, my boy, my flesh and blood his soft curls, his big eyes, the way he clings to me like I’m his anchor. And then Elias, with his sharp jawline already forming, his dimple, the stubborn set of his chin. Like a ghost of myself at that age.

The resemblance is too much to ignore. Too dangerous to ignore.

But if I even breathe that thought out loud, everything I know will crumble.

Amina’s voice slices through my spiral. “You need to make a choice, Jake. Are you with us, or are you with her?”

Her words snap my head up. Her eyes are locked on mine, fierce and unrelenting. She’s daring me to say the wrong thing, daring me to cross a line we can’t come back from.

But before I can answer, Ethan comes running back in, holding up a piece of paper covered in colorful scribbles. “Look, Daddy! It’s us! You, me, and Mommy!”

My chest caves in. Three stick figures holding hands, smiling under a crooked sun. A perfect little family.

I smile weakly and scoop him into my lap, holding the paper with him. “It’s beautiful, buddy.” My voice shakes despite myself.

He beams, wrapping his arms around my neck again. And I cling to him, because in this moment, he’s the only thing keeping me from falling apart completely.

But in the back of my mind, I still see another drawing that hasn’t been made yet. Another little boy’s stick figure, standing next to me. Smiling like he belongs.

And I don’t know how much longer I can pretend I don’t see it.