Chapter 12 Jack #2
"I'm keeping the foundation open."
She blinked. Waiting.
Her eyes widened. She blinked once, twice, as if processing a language she didn't understand. Her hand went to her chest, fingers splaying over her heart like she needed to check it was still beating.
"What?"
"Indefinitely. The board will be restructured, and funding will be secured. It's not closing."
The shock on her face morphed into something that looked like hope, but she was afraid to believe it. Her eyes were bright with unshed tears, her breath coming faster.
"That's... that's wonderful, Jack. Elena would be so—"
"And I want you to help run it."
She froze. "What?"
"Officially. Not as a temporary reader. As Program Director. Working alongside Margaret. Permanently."
"No." She took a full step back, shaking her head hard enough that her braid swung. "Jack, I can't. I'm not qualified. I don't have a degree in non-profit management, I don't have experience, I don't have—"
"Elena had a degree in early childhood education and a maxed-out credit card," I interrupted, standing up.
I came around the desk, needing her to see I wasn't delivering a corporate promotion, but offering a piece of my soul.
"You have what matters. The children trust you the moment they meet you.
The parents thank Margaret for finding you.
You have a vision for this place that isn't about preserving a shrine, but about making it live and grow. "
I stopped a few feet from her, close enough to see the rapid pulse at her throat, the way her hands trembled slightly.
"Elena started this with nothing but passion and stubbornness.
You have both. Plus, you have something she always wished she had, you understand what it's like to need a safe place.
To need someone to show up. These kids see that in you. They feel it."
"But why?" Her voice broke on the question, raw and desperate. A tear finally escaped, tracking down her cheek. "Why me? After everything. After what I... why would you trust me with this?"
That question held everything our strange conflict represented. The night of the tea party, when I'd been cruel. The weeks of conditional tolerance. The careful, painful rebuilding.
I leaned against the desk, trying to find words that were true but didn't expose the raw, terrified hope beneath them.
"Three reasons." I held up a finger. "First, because it's what Elena would have wanted - this place thriving, not shuttered.
" Another finger. "Second, because you deserve a chance to do work that matters, to use that light you clearly have for something good. "
I paused. The third reason was the hardest. The most honest.
"And third, because I'm tired, Anna."
She went very still. Waiting.
"I'm tired of living in that penthouse like it's a memorial.
Tired of teaching Daisy that love means endless mourning.
Tired of the anger that has been my only fuel for two years.
" I met her eyes. "I've been trying to punish you, in one way or another, since the day I found out who you were.
And I'm just... exhausted by it. By hating you.
By trying to hate you when you keep making it impossible. "
I opened my heart and let out my confession. I watched it land, saw her absorb it. Her face crumpled slightly, tears flowing freely now.
A single tear escaped and traced a path down her cheek. She didn't wipe it away. "I don't know what to say."
"Say yes."
She let out a shaky laugh that was half a sob. Her hands came up to cover her face, shoulders shaking. When she lowered them, her smile was watery but real. Genuine. "Yes. Yes, of course. Thank you. I won't let you down. I won't let her down."
Her words meant the world to me. The air felt charged, too thick to breathe. I was about to say something, I didn’t know what it was, but then the office door burst open.
Daisy zoomed in, a whirlwind of excitement. "Daddy! Aunt Emma's here! She has puppets!"
She skidded to a stop, looking from Anna's tearful face to mine. Her own face lit up with secret, triumphant knowledge. "You told her! You told her! Mommy’s place is staying open!"
I crouched down to her level. "I did. And Anna's going to help run it."
Anna, still emotional, smiled through her tears. "I'm staying to help with the foundation, sweet pea."
Daisy's head tilted, her logic flawless and devastating. "But you help at home too. With me. And with Daddy." She looked between us, her gray eyes, Elena's eyes, so earnest and sure. "Are we going to be a family forever?"
The air was vacuumed from the room. I watched the color drain from Anna's face, then flood back in a violent blush. Her mouth opened. Closed. Then opened again.
"Daisy," Anna managed, her voice strangled. "That's... that's not... your daddy and I, we work together."
Daisy looked genuinely confused. "But you read stories. You eat dinner. You make the house not sad."
The innocent, five-year-old demolition of every carefully constructed boundary between us was complete. Anna looked like she wanted the floor to swallow her whole.
"I..." Anna's voice was strangled. She was backing toward the door. "I should go help Margaret and Emma with the puppets. They'll need—I should—excuse me."
She fled. Actually fled, the door swinging shut behind her with more force than necessary.
Daisy watched her go, then turned to me, her expression shifting to concern. "Daddy, did I say a bad word? Is Anna angry with me?"
I pulled her into a hug, my heart hammering against my ribs. "No, bug. You didn't say a wrong thing."
She leaned against my shoulder. "Anna should stay with us. She makes everything happy."
I stood, taking her hand. "Let's go see these puppets."
Out in the main room, the energy was vibrant and chaotic. Emma Reed was indeed there. A warm, kind-faced woman surrounded by star-struck kids and a box of gorgeous animal puppets. She was chatting animatedly with Margaret and a still-flustered Anna about the fundraiser.
"We'll call it 'A Night of Bright Pages,'" Emma was saying enthusiastically. "Anna, your connection with the kids is perfect. You could host the children's segment..."
Anna was nodding, contributing ideas, but her gaze kept flickering to me, filled with panicked uncertainty. I gave her what I hoped was a reassuring nod.
The reading session began. Emma did a spectacular, puppet-filled rendition, but all I could see was Anna, sitting off to the side with Daisy in her lap, slowly relaxing. When it was over, and the children clamored for one more story, it was Anna they chanted for. "Anna! Anna! Read the dragon one!"
She glanced at me, a silent question. I nodded.
She settled into the large chair, and Daisy immediately climbed into her lap, settling against her like she'd done it a thousand times.
Because she had.
This wasn't temporary anymore. This wasn't professional. This was Daisy choosing her safe person. This was family, whether we acknowledged it or not.
She opened the book. Within sentences, she had transformed. The voices, the expressions, the sheer, captivating joy she took in the story, it was Elena's magic. But it was also, undeniably, uniquely Anna's.
As I watched her, Daisy's head resting trustingly on her shoulder, the terrifying truth slammed into me.
I was falling for her. Not as a replacement for Elena—God, never that.
Not as a convenient warmth to fill the cold spaces.
But as Anna. Complicated, guilty, gentle, strong Anna.
The woman who made vegetable boats for my daughter.
Who cried when I offered her this job. Who'd just fled from a five-year-old's innocent question like it was a death sentence.
And the most terrifying part was the realization that I was already over the edge, powerless to stop the fall.
The question wasn't if I could forgive her. The question, as Daisy had so simply laid bare, was whether I dared to ask her to stay. Forever.
The session ended with applause. Children swarmed Anna, asking questions, showing her drawings. She was laughing, patient, fully present.
And then I saw it.
Her phone, lying face-up on the table where she'd set down her bag. The screen lit up with a notification.
From this distance, I couldn't read the message. But I saw her glance over it. I saw the way her face changed, the color draining away, the smile freezing, then cracking. Saw her hands start to shake.
She looked up, her eyes finding mine across the room. And the terror in them was so raw and complete that I was moving before I'd consciously decided to.
Something was wrong.
Something was very, very wrong.