10. Graham #3
Riley nodded. “Right there.”
“Oh, she’s really fighting in there!” the older woman said. “Maisie, give me your hand, feel this right on her side!”
Maisie hesitated until Riley reached for her wrist and guided her palm into place.
Her eyes widened.
“Riley, she is absolutely going to be a fighter. Feeling this is completely wild!”
Another woman stepped closer. “Can I?”
“Sure.”
Riley shifted her shirt enough to show them where to put their hands.
Graham stayed where he was.
The stairs were four paces away. Nothing blocked them. He could have crossed the floor in seconds.
But Riley had not looked toward him.
Below the stage, the women laughed when another kick landed.
“We woke her up by dragging all these tables across the floor,” Riley said. “She is clearly annoyed about the noise. She definitely prefers it quiet.”
“That child picked the wrong family for quiet,” Maisie said.
The older woman smiled. “You are doing an absolutely wonderful job, mama. She already has a heavy set of legs on her, that’s for sure.”
Graham rested his hand against the stage curtain beside him.
That was his daughter.
Strangers knew the places she kicked. Maisie knew where to put her hand. Riley trusted these women enough to invite them closer without hesitation.
His old instinct told him that being the father gave him the right to step down there.
The man he had been yesterday would have done it.
Graham stayed at the edge of the stage while their hands rested where his had never been.
One of the older volunteers glanced up at him. She studied his face, then looked at the boxes stacked behind him before turning back toward Riley.
No recognition.
No question about why he was standing there.
“Can somebody take those last two pantry boxes?” a man called from the far end of the hall. “We’re running out of room by the sorting tables.”
Graham stepped away from the edge. “I’ve got them.”
The curtain brushed his arm as he moved behind it and reached for the nearest carton. Cardboard dragged across his palms when he lifted it. His shoulders burned at once, but the work gave him somewhere else to look.
Below, the women were still laughing.
“Try again,” Maisie said. “I swear she kicked right under my hand.”
“You’re crowding her,” another woman said.
“I am not crowding anybody.”
Riley laughed. “Everybody gets one turn before I start charging admission.”
Graham carried the box across the stage and fitted it beside the canned vegetables.
He had spent years being recognized before he entered a room. Waiters knew his face. Security guards knew his number. Reporters shouted his name from behind ropes.
Here, a woman had looked straight at him and gone back to Riley because he was just another man stacking donations.
That should have embarrassed him.
Instead, it made brutal sense.
“Where do you want the baby food?” a volunteer asked.
“Front row,” Riley said. “Keep it away from anything in glass jars so nobody knocks those over when the truck gets here.”
Graham bent for another box.
The stage curtain cut off part of his view now, leaving only a narrow gap overlooking the floor. Riley stood in the gap with Maisie beside her and the women gathered close.
He could have walked down there.
Nothing physical stopped him.
Riley’s silence did.
A local woman rested one hand against Riley’s belly, then smiled. “There she goes again.”
Maisie leaned over. “I missed it.”
“You’ll get another chance. She hasn’t stopped all morning.”
The woman looked at Riley. “Does her father know she’s moving this much? Actually feeling that milestone is incredible for a dad.”
Graham stopped with the box halfway onto the stack.
For one instant, he waited for Riley to glance toward the stage.
She didn’t.
“We’re doing fine on our own,” Riley said. “Her father has an incredibly demanding schedule to maintain.”
The words carried across the gym without effort.
Graham finished setting the box down.
He could have stepped out from behind the curtain and corrected the woman. He could have announced that the father was standing less than thirty feet away, carrying boxes because Riley had ordered him to keep busy.
But Riley wasn’t wrong.
For years, the schedule had answered every question for him.
Why couldn’t he sit down for breakfast?
Schedule.
Why couldn’t he finish an argument with his wife?
Schedule.
Why did sponsors, cameras, and executives always seem to get the first version of him while Riley received whatever remained?
Schedule.
Graham ran a hand over the bent top flap of the carton and straightened it.
Below, the conversation had already moved on.
Maisie complained that the baby had kicked twice after she moved her hand. Riley laughed with the women, and someone called for another roll of tape.
Nobody asked Graham anything.
He stood behind the curtain with the next box waiting beside him and spoke low enough that the words belonged only to the empty stage.
“I’m right here. Riley, please, I’m standing in this exact room.”
He was standing in the same room, and she had already learned how to live as if he weren’t.