Chapter 20: THE THINGS WE MISSED

The memories came faster now, fragments tumbling over each other like water over rocks.

Kael's first steps. His chubby hands gripping the edge of the coffee table, his face concentrated in fierce determination. Younger Lyra kneeling three feet away, arms outstretched, tears streaming down her face. "Come on, baby. You can do it. Come to Mama."

He let go. Took one step. Two. Three. And collapsed into her waiting arms, both of them laughing, both of them crying, the moment perfect and pure and utterly theirs.

Alistair wasn't there. He was never there.

Kael's first birthday. A small celebration in the garden—younger Lyra had decorated everything herself, hung streamers, baked a cake from scratch. A few pack members attended, brought gifts, smiled politely. Kael smashed cake into his hair and laughed with pure joy.

Alistair appeared for the photograph. Stood behind his son, hands on the child's shoulders, smile perfectly composed for the camera. The moment the flash faded, he was gone again.

In the memory, younger Lyra watched him go. Her smile never wavered. She'd learned to hold it in place by then.

Kael's first sickness. Fever spiking at midnight. Younger Lyra pacing the nursery, holding her son, singing lullabies in a voice rough with exhaustion and fear. She'd called Alistair three times. No answer. She'd called the pack doctor, who arrived within twenty minutes and stayed until dawn.

In the morning, when the fever broke and Kael finally slept, younger Lyra sat in the rocking chair and stared at the wall. She didn't cry. She was too tired to cry.

"Where was he?" Aiden's voice was quiet, but there was an edge to it. Something dangerous beneath the calm.

Lyra shook her head. "Business. It was always business."

"A child with a fever and he chose business."

"I chose him." Lyra's voice was distant. "Every day, I chose him. Even when he didn't choose me back. Even when he didn't choose Kael back. I told myself it would get better. That once Kael was older, once Alistair's work settled, once things were easier. There was always a once to reach for." She paused. "It never came."

Another memory.

Kael, age two, sitting in his high chair. Younger Lyra feeding him breakfast. He was chattering—real words now, sentences forming, his world expanding daily. "Mama, look. Bird."

"That's right, baby. Bird."

"Bird fly?"

"Birds do fly, yes."

"Kael fly?"

Younger Lyra laughed, the sound bright and genuine. "Not yet, sweet boy. But someday you'll do amazing things. I know it."

The kitchen door opened. Alistair entered, briefcase in hand, heading for the coffee pot without glancing at them.

"Daddy!" Kael's face lit up. "Daddy, look bird!"

Alistair poured his coffee. "That's nice, son."

The light in Kael's face dimmed. Just slightly. Just enough that anyone paying attention would notice.

No one was paying attention.

The memory dissolved.

Lyra stood in the darkness between moments, Aiden's hand still wrapped around hers. She could feel him vibrating with barely contained anger—not at her, never at her. At the man who had taken her light and called it duty. At the years she'd spent starving while trying to feed someone who would never be full.

"I was so blind," she whispered. "I thought if I just tried harder, loved deeper, gave more—he'd eventually see me. Eventually choose me." She laughed, but there was no humor in it. "I spent three years trying to earn love that should never have been conditional."

Aiden pulled her close. His arms wrapped around her, solid and warm and present.

"You were never the problem," he said against her hair. "You were the only solution. And he was too stupid to see it."