Chapter 18
Ethan
Morning came with a killer headache.
I hadn’t slept much. I’d come home late the night before, long after the house had gone quiet.
Everyone had been asleep by then. Lily in her room, curled around her stuffed rabbit.
My parents already in bed. I’d moved through the house carefully, trying not to wake anyone, too tired to do more than check that Lily was okay and pull a blanket up over her shoulders.
Now I stood in the doorway of the sunlit kitchen, rubbing my eyes, trying to shake off the heaviness in my body.
My mom was already there.
She stood at the counter, waiting for the coffee to finish brewing, her back half-turned toward me. The radio was off. The house was quiet except for the low gurgle of the coffee machine and the hum of the refrigerator.
She turned when she heard me.
“Morning,” she said.
“Morning.”
She looked tired, standing there in the soft morning light, wearing an old sweater I remembered from years ago, holding a mug in her hands.
She looked older.
The lines around her eyes were deeper. There were laugh lines that hadn’t been there when I left ten years ago. Her hair had more gray in it, especially near her temples.
I swallowed my guilt and looked away.
She watched me for a moment, quiet. I knew that look. She’d always had it, the one that meant she was paying attention even when she wasn’t saying anything.
“Sit down,” she said.
I hesitated, then pulled out a chair and sat at the small kitchen table. My shoulders felt tight, like I’d been holding them there all night.
She poured herself a cup of coffee, then paused. She glanced at me again.
Instead of reaching for a second mug, she opened the cupboard and took out the hot cocoa tin.
I almost laughed. Almost.
She hadn’t done that in years. Not since I was a teenager. But she used to do it every time she thought something was bothering me. Cocoa instead of coffee. Like caffeine would only make things worse.
She didn’t say anything about it. Just set a small pot on the stove and started heating milk.
The smell of chocolate filled the kitchen. Familiar. Comforting in a way I hadn’t realized I still remembered.
She slid into the chair across from me once the mugs were ready, setting one in front of me.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
The steam curled up between us. I stared down at the surface of the drink, my hands wrapped around the mug even though it was too hot.
“I’m overwhelmed,” I said finally.
The words came out flat. Honest. No buildup.
She nodded once, like that wasn’t surprising at all.
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” I continued. “With Lily. I mean… I’m trying, but it feels like everything I do is wrong. She’s hurting, and I can’t fix it. I don’t even know how to help her.”
My throat tightened, and I cleared it.
“I don’t think I’m suited for this,” I said. “For raising a kid. Especially one who’s been through something like this.”
She stayed quiet, listening.
“I keep thinking… why me?” I went on. “Why would Matt and Jenny choose me? Of all people.” I let out a short breath. “You know my history. You know how messed up I’ve been. How unstable I was back then.”
I shook my head.
“And Jenny didn’t even like me. Not really. She barely tolerated me. I don’t understand how she was okay with me raising her daughter.”
My mom stared down at her cocoa for a moment, then looked back up at me.
“I don’t know exactly why they chose you,” she said. “I can’t answer that for them.”
That didn’t help. Not at first.
But then she kept going.
“We are older, your father and I,” she said. “They must have thought about it, about what would happen if something were to happen to us. They didn’t want Lily losing her parents and then not long after, losing her guardians too.”
I frowned. “So they picked me because I was… younger?”
She shook her head. “Not just that. But it mattered.”
She paused, then added, “They wanted someone who would be there, for far longer. Someone they trusted, someone Lily already knew.”
I let that sit.
“She trusted you,” my mom said quietly. “And so did Matt.”
I looked down at my hands. They were shaking slightly.
“I’m not prepared,” I said. “I don’t feel ready for this. I don’t think I ever will.”
She leaned back in her chair and studied me.
“No one ever is,” she said. “There’s no point where you wake up and feel ready to be a parent.”
She took a sip of her cocoa, then looked at me again.
“Do you love her?”
The question caught me off guard.
“What?” I said, sharper than I meant to. “Of course I love her. Why would you even ask that?”
It stung. It felt unfair, even for all my faults, there was no doubt about that, I loved that child with everything in me.
She smiled gently, completely unbothered.
“Then you’re halfway there,” she said.
I stared at her.
“That’s it,” she continued. “That’s the part that matters most. Everything else, you figure it out as you go.”
She reached across the table and rested her hand over mine.
“You’re not doing this alone,” she said. “Your father and I are here. And we’re not going anywhere.”
My chest tightened.
I nodded, once.
The cocoa had cooled enough to drink. I took a sip, the taste instantly pulling me back to a time when things felt simpler. When sitting at this same table meant safety instead of responsibility.
For the first time since Lily’s tantrum, the pressure in my chest eased just a little.
Not because things were suddenly okay.
But because I wasn’t carrying it by myself anymore.