0003. Don't Get Used To It

ALICE’S POV

By the time I walked into the hospital room, I had composed myself completely. My face was set.

Lucian was awake, sitting up in bed. His face brightened the moment he saw me.

"Mommy. You came back."

"I came back." I lifted him into my arms. He smelled like baby shampoo, antiseptic, and that small, particular scent he'd had since the day he was born. "I'll always come back."

"The doctor said I can go home tomorrow."

"Yes, tomorrow."

"And Daddy... Is Daddy coming?"

I held his face in both hands. His eyes were mine. The hope in them wasn't.

"Daddy's coming home," I said. "He'll be at the table for breakfast. And he's staying."

I had not, technically, lied yet.

~~~~

I was up at five. I worked the kitchen by the list—pancakes shaped like moons, berries arranged in a smile across the plate, juice in the cartoon-wolf cup, three places set for the first time in three years.

I made Lucian's plate. I made Benjamin's plate. I poured Benjamin's coffee.

I let it go cold by the door.

Lucian came running in at seven, still in pajamas, hair everywhere, the question already on his lips.

"Is Daddy here?"

"Soon, baby."

He climbed into his chair and waited.

Seven-thirty. Eight. He started pushing his pancake around the plate. The berry smile collapsed under his fork.

"It's okay, Mommy." His voice had gone small. "Daddy's probably busy. He's always busy."

I felt something crack in my chest, but I didn’t let it touch my face.

I picked up Benjamin’s untouched cup and carried it to the sink. Rinsed it. Set it upside down. The water ran cold over my fingers for a long time.

"He’ll come," I said. "He promised."

Eight-fifteen. The door opened.

Benjamin stood in the doorway in jeans and a sweater. I hadn’t seen him in jeans in four years. For a second, I almost didn’t recognize him.

"Daddy!"

Lucian was off his chair before the word finished. He hit Benjamin’s legs and held on tight.

Benjamin froze. I watched the calculations move across his face—the impulse to step back, the memory of the promise, the fact that he had, somewhere along the way, agreed to this. He patted Lucian’s head once. Deliberate. Stiff.

"Hello, Lucian. I brought you something."

He held out a paper bag, as if he wasn’t sure how the handoff worked.

Lucian took it with both hands.

"The croissant," Benjamin said. "From the bakery. The one you like."

Months ago, I’d mentioned it once in passing. I hadn’t thought he was listening.

Lucian opened the bag, looked inside, then looked up.

"Is this for me?" he whispered. "A present?"

Benjamin nodded.

Lucian started crying—not the bad kind. The other kind. The kind a four-year-old saves up for years and finally spends.

"Thank you, Daddy. Thank you. Thank you."

I saw something move behind Benjamin’s eyes. I don’t know what it was. I don’t know if he did.

"You're welcome," he said. The stiffness, for one beat, was less.

I stepped aside and let him in.

~~~~

The market was Lucian’s favorite place. Every Saturday for a year, I’d walked him through the stalls, past the cheese woman and the man who twisted balloon animals out of nothing. He’d never gone with both of us.

Today, he had us.

He’d drawn a map the night before—a yellow square for the honey stall, a wobbly circle for the cheese, a balloon for the balloon man. He pulled it out of his pocket with both hands, careful as a treaty.

"Honey first." His finger landed on the yellow square. "Then cheese. Then balloons. Then—"

"Slow down, buddy. We’ve got all day." Benjamin’s voice was still awkward, but underneath it, something had loosened.

We don’t, I thought. We don’t have enough days. Never enough.

Lucian walked between us, one hand in mine, one in Benjamin’s, the map fluttering in his pocket. At the honey stall, he insisted on feeding both of us—bread dipped in pale gold, held up to our mouths.

"It’s good, right? The bees made it."

"It’s delicious," I said.

"Yes," Benjamin said.

Lucian glowed.

For a single clean minute, I let myself look at us in the polished side of the honey jar. Three people. Holding hands. Eating bread. It looked like a family.

Then I heard her voice.

"What a coincidence."

Lisa came through the crowd as if she’d been waiting for the perfect gap between stalls. Her hand was wrapped around her daughter’s. Lily was six, blonde, with eyes a darker shade than her mother’s. Benjamin’s goddaughter—that was the word he used.

The moment Lily saw him, her face changed.

"Daddy!"

She let go of her mother and ran. Benjamin caught her without thinking and lifted her onto his hip—the way he had never once lifted Lucian.

"I knew you’d be here." Lily’s voice was bright and clean and terrible. "Mommy said maybe you’d come play with us."

I felt Lucian’s grip on my hand tighten. His face, which had been so radiant moments before, went pale.

"Mommy?" His voice was small and confused. "Is Daddy leaving again?"

Before I could answer, he asked, even quieter, "Why does she call him Daddy too?"

Benjamin’s expression flickered. Lisa hurried forward, her cheeks flushed.

"Lily, sweetheart," she said, reaching for her daughter. "We talked about this. You should call him Uncle Benjamin, remember?"

"But he’s my daddy," Lily protested. "He said he would be my daddy now. You said so. You said—"

"That’s enough." Lisa’s voice was sharp—sharper than I’d ever heard it. She pulled Lily from Benjamin’s arms, her smile fixed and brittle. "I’m so sorry. She gets confused. You know how children are."

I was furious. A cold, quiet fury that settled into my bones and made my hands tremble.

I pulled Benjamin aside, my grip on his arm harder than necessary.

"What are you doing?" I hissed. "Your mistress and her child just show up and call you 'Daddy' in front of our son? On the first day you’re supposed to be proving you can actually be a father?"

Benjamin’s eyes flashed. "Lisa is not my mistress. She’s a friend. A friend I care deeply about, but a friend."

"And her daughter just happens to call you Daddy?"

"That’s not—it’s complicated."

"I don’t care how complicated it is." I released his arm and stepped back. "You made a promise, Benjamin. You made a deal. You don’t get to play happy family with your first love while our son watches. Not today. Not any day. So either you honor your word, or I tear up those divorce papers and we spend the rest of our lives trapped together. Your choice."

Something shifted in Benjamin’s expression. Surprise, maybe. Or respect. Or just the cold realization that I wasn’t going to roll over anymore.

He turned back to Lisa.

"I can’t," he said. "Not today. I already promised Lucian."

Lisa’s face fell. The expression was so perfect, so practiced, that I wondered how many times she’d used it before.

"Of course," she said, her voice trembling slightly. "I understand. Come on, Lily. Uncle Benjamin is busy today."

"But Mommy—"

"I said come on."

She walked away. The crowd opened for her. Before it swallowed her, she turned her head, and her eyes found mine. The hatred in her face was clean. No performance. The first honest thing about her.

I held her gaze without blinking.

I knelt to Lucian. He was still clutching the crumpled map.

"Daddy’s staying," I said.

He looked up at Benjamin, scared to ask.

"Really?"

Benjamin knelt too—slow, like a man who had never done it before.

"Really. I’m staying."

Lucian let out the breath he’d been holding. He pushed the map back into his pocket and reached for both our hands.

Lisa hadn’t gone yet. She’d stopped at the edge of the cheese stall, Lily on her hip, the smile back in place. She tilted her head at me, but the look in her eyes told me exactly what she was thinking.

She didn’t say it out loud. She didn’t need to.

Don’t get used to it.