Chapter 43
KAIRO
The apartment feels too big when he’s gone.
It’s strange, really—how something as small as a child’s voice can fill every corner of a space. How its absence can hollow it out.
Ben’s been at the orphanage for only a few hours, but I’m already pacing like I’ve lost him.
I told myself I’d stay busy—clean the kitchen, fold the laundry, maybe even answer the messages stacked in my inbox.
I’ve done none of it. The dishes are still piled high.
The clothes still sit, wrinkled, accusing.
Instead, I circle the living room for the third time, barefoot on the cool laminate, arms folded, stomach twisting itself into knots. The afternoon light cuts through the blinds in narrow gold stripes, painting bars across the walls. The hum of the fridge sounds like breathing. I hate it.
I told him he could go. I meant it.
Jav deserved that much.
But now that Ben’s actually there, my mind won’t stop feeding me images—Jav with his scars and his quiet eyes, standing too close to danger even when he’s trying to stay safe. My son walking beside him, tiny hand in a man’s grasp that once broke bones for a living.
I know who Jav is.
I also know who he’s trying to be.
And that’s the part that scares me most.
Because maybe he’s finally changing, and I don’t know what to do with that.
The compad sits on the table where I left it—a stack of unread messages glowing faintly in the afternoon haze. Most are business inquiries, the kind my agent would have handled if I hadn’t burned every professional bridge in a fifty-mile radius.
I scroll half-heartedly until one subject line stops me cold.
“To Kairo — from Prison (unsent drafts recovered)”
My breath hitches. I don’t remember downloading these. They must’ve been archived automatically, buried in the server somewhere between grocery receipts and overdue notices.
My thumb trembles as I open the folder.
Five messages. Dated years ago.
I almost close the file, but something—maybe guilt, maybe longing—makes me press open.
The first few are rambling: apologies half-finished, sentences breaking mid-thought, the tone brittle with shame. He talks about the boy he never met, the woman he never stopped seeing every time he closed his eyes.
And then the last one.
It’s short. Barely two lines.
Tell our cub he’s not a mistake. Tell him he’s everything.
— J.
That’s it.
No greeting. No sign-off.
Just that.
The tears come quietly.
They start behind my eyes, burning hot, and before I know it I’m gasping. I press a hand over my mouth, but the sob still escapes, jagged and ugly.
I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the floor, knees to my chest, compad clutched tight. My body shakes with every breath.
I used to think crying over him made me weak. That I had to stay angry, stay in control. That if I let the grief in, it would drown me.
But this isn’t grief.
It’s relief.
Because for the first time, I see him—not the soldier, not the teacher, not the man who keeps trying to make amends through grand gestures.
Just the father who wrote a two-line prayer from a cell and trusted the universe to carry it here.
I stay there a long time.
Long enough for the light to shift, for the apartment to grow soft and shadowed. My tears dry on my cheeks, sticky and salt-sour.
When I finally stand, I feel… lighter. Not fixed. Not forgiven. Just ready.
I walk to Ben’s room. The walls are covered in his usual chaos of drawings—spaceships, cupcakes, clawed heroes. His shoes lie by the door, one upright, one fallen over. His blanket is still rumpled from this morning.
It smells like him. Soap and paint.
I press my face into it and breathe.
The front door opens an hour later.
“Mommy!” Ben’s voice is bright, bursting through the quiet. I turn before I even realize I’m smiling.
He’s running toward me, cheeks flushed, holding something clutched in both hands.
“Look what we made!”
He holds it up. A plush—roughly stitched, stuffed with something uneven, shaped vaguely like a person. Its fabric skin is a patchwork of scraps, but it has little felt claws and crooked eyes drawn in marker.
“It’s Daddy Jav,” he says proudly. “He helped me sew it. He said it’s for when I miss him. But I told him I won’t miss him ‘cause I’ll see him again soon.”
I freeze.
Ben blinks. “Mommy? You okay?”
I take the plush from his hands. It’s warm from his grip. Lopsided, silly, perfect.
I kneel.
“Did you thank him?” I ask softly.
He nods. “He said you could visit too. He didn’t even smile when he said it, but his eyes did.”
That’s when the last piece of me breaks.
After Ben goes to bed, I move through the apartment like a ghost.
I pull a bag from the closet and start packing—no rush, no panic. Just quiet purpose. A sweater. Toothbrush. The book he loves to read. The one Jav used in class to make the kids laugh.
I stand in the doorway a long time, watching my son sleep. His breathing is slow and even. His arm wraps around that crooked little plush like it’s armor.
My throat tightens.
I lean down, kiss his forehead. Whisper, “You’re everything.”
Then I slip out before I can lose my nerve.
The night air bites at my cheeks as I walk. Haven-7 is calm tonight, the hum of traffic low, the streetlamps throwing puddles of gold across the wet pavement. Somewhere in the distance, a ship lifts off—a hollow sound that rattles through the bones.
I keep moving.
Each step steadier than the last.
When I reach the orphanage gate, I stop. The building glows faintly under the lamplight, windows lined with paper stars and the muffled laughter of children still awake past curfew.
I stand there, my heart pounding.
Because this isn’t just a walk to him.
It’s a walk toward everything I’ve been afraid to want.
I grip the strap of my bag.
And I whisper to the night, to myself, to the ghosts still clinging to me—
“Okay, Jav. I’m coming.”
Then I push open the gate and step inside.