13. Kiara
— ? —
Kiara
The dinosaur hall stretches before us, and Kieran stops breathing.
I watch his face as he takes it in. The vaulted ceiling. The mounted skeletons. The T. rex in the center of the room, its massive skull tilted toward the entrance as if waiting for visitors.
“Mama,” he whispers.
“I see it.”
“Mama, that’s a real T. rex.”
“The bones are real. The dinosaur isn’t alive anymore.”
“I know that.” He sounds offended. “I’m not a baby. But the bones are real. They were inside a real dinosaur. A real dinosaur walked around with those bones.”
Jensen crouches beside him. “Do you want to get closer?”
Kieran nods, unable to speak. He takes Jensen’s hand and pulls him toward the exhibit. I follow a few steps behind, watching them navigate the crowd together.
We’ve been doing this for a while now. Jensen comes to the apartment.
Jensen takes us places. Jensen learns the names of all the dinosaurs and the differences between the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods.
Jensen listens when Kieran explains that the museum probably got the arm positioning wrong on the velociraptor skeleton, because new research suggests they held their palms facing inward.
“The tall man knows a lot about dinosaurs,” Kieran told me once.
“He’s been studying,” I said.
“For me?”
“For you.”
Now I watch them standing beneath the T. rex, Kieran’s hand still gripping Jensen’s, his head tilted back to take in the full height of the skeleton.
“How tall is he?” Kieran asks.
“The sign says forty feet long and twelve feet tall at the hip.”
“That’s very tall.”
“Taller than our building.”
“Taller than most buildings.” Kieran frowns. “How did he fit anywhere?”
“The world was different then. More space. Bigger plants.”
“I wish I could see it. The world when dinosaurs lived.”
“What would you do if you could?”
“I’d watch. I wouldn’t hunt or anything. I’d just watch and take notes. Scientists take notes.”
“That’s a good plan.”
They move to the next exhibit. I trail behind, pretending to read the informational plaques, actually watching my son bond with his father.
Jensen has kept every promise. He shows up. He pays attention. He treats Kieran’s expertise with genuine respect, not the condescension adults often show to children who know too much about narrow subjects. He asks questions. He remembers the answers.
And Kieran is blossoming.
He was never unhappy before. I made sure of that. But there was an absence in his life that I couldn’t fill, no matter how hard I tried. An absence where a father should have been. Jensen is filling it, carefully and slowly, exactly as we agreed.
“Mama, come look.” Kieran waves me over to a display of fossilized eggs. “These are oviraptor eggs. Oviraptor means egg thief, but they weren’t actually thieves.”
I catch Jensen’s eye over Kieran’s head. He’s smiling. The expression has become familiar over these weeks. Pride, wonder, disbelief that this child exists.
“Can we see the pterodactyls next?” Kieran asks.
“Pterodactyls aren’t technically dinosaurs,” Jensen says. “They’re pterosaurs. A different category.”
Kieran’s face lights up. “You knew that?”
He simply nods, and they head for the stairs. I follow, my heart doing complicated things.
We spend a long time in the museum. Kieran wants to see everything twice. He wants to read every plaque and examine every skeleton and explain to anyone who will listen why the scientific names are Latin.
By the time we leave, he’s exhausted. He falls asleep in the car on the way home, his head lolling against his car seat, Victor the velociraptor clutched in his arms.
Jensen carries him inside. He’s done this before, these last weeks. Learned how to lift Kieran without waking him, how to navigate the narrow hallway, how to tuck him into bed with Victor beside him.
I watch from the doorway as Jensen pulls the blanket up to Kieran’s chin. He pauses, looking down at our son’s face.
“He looks like my father,” he says quietly.
“I didn’t know that.”
“The jaw. The way his brow furrows when he’s concentrating. My father used to look exactly like that when he was working through a hard problem.”
“What was your father like?”
Jensen is quiet for a moment. “Kind. Distant sometimes, but kind. He worked too much. I think he was trying to build a buffer between me and my mother. A fortune large enough that I’d never need her approval.”
“Did it work?”
“No. Nothing works against my mother. She absorbs everything into her orbit.”
He touches Kieran’s hair gently, then steps back. We leave the room together, pulling the door almost closed behind us.
“Thank you,” I say.
“For what?”
“For being here. For being good at this.”
“I’m not good at this. I’m learning.”
“You’re learning well.”
We move to the small balcony off the living room. The city spreads below us, lights and traffic and the hum of a world continuing without us.
“Can I ask you a question?” Jensen says.
“Yes.”
“When did you know? That you were pregnant?”
I lean against the railing. “A few weeks before the wedding. I took a test. Then another test. Then three more tests, because I couldn’t believe it.”
“Were you scared?”
“Terrified. And happy. Both at the same time.”
“How did you decide to keep him?”
“I never decided. There was never a decision to make. He existed, and I wanted him to exist, and everything else arranged itself around that fact.”
Jensen nods slowly. “I wish I’d been there.”
“So do I.”
“I’d have been terrified too. And happy. Both at the same time.”
“I believe you.”
We stand in silence for a while. The city hums below us. “I spoke to Garrett,” Jensen says.
My stomach tightens. Garrett is his head of security, and I knew him well enough. At least before everything went to shit.
“About your mother?”
“He’s found some irregularities. Financial transfers that don’t match any legitimate business purpose. Meetings with people who have no connection to her professional life.”
“Is it enough?”
“Not yet. But it’s a start.”
“What happens when you have enough?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t figured that part out yet.”
“Will you confront her?”
“Eventually. When I have proof she can’t deny.”
“And then?”
“Then I’ll make sure she can never hurt us again.”
The word hangs between us. Us. As if we’re a unit. A family.
“Jensen.”
“Yes?”
“What are we doing?”
He turns to look at me. The city lights reflect in his eyes. “What do you mean?”
“This. You and me. The museum trips and the balcony talks and the way you look at me when you think I’m not paying attention.”
“How do I look at you?”
“The same way you used to. Before.”
He’s quiet for a moment. “Does that bother you?”
“No. It scares me.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m starting to look at you the same way. And I don’t know if I’m ready for what that means.”
He takes a step closer. We’re inches apart now. I can feel the warmth of his body, smell the familiar scent of his cologne.
“I’m not going to push,” he says. “Whatever we are, whatever we become, it’s your choice. I meant what I said about following your lead.”
“And if I never lead us anywhere?”
“Then I’ll be here anyway. For Kieran. For whatever you’re willing to give me.”
“That isn’t fair to you.”
“It isn’t about fairness. It’s about what matters. You and Kieran matter. Everything else is negotiable.”
I search his face. I find nothing there but honesty. “I don’t know how to trust you again,” I say.
“You have every reason not to.”
“I want to. But every time I start to believe this is real, I remember standing in that bridal suite. I remember watching the time crawl. I remember believing you’d chosen someone else.”
“The photos were lies.”
“I know that now. But I believed them for five years. Five years of hatred doesn’t disappear just because the foundation was false.”
“Then let them disappear slowly.” He reaches out. His hand hovers near mine on the railing, not quite touching. “Let me prove myself. Not in one grand gesture, but in a thousand small ones. Let me show you, over and over, that I’m not going anywhere.”
“That’s a lot to ask.”
“I know. But I’m asking anyway.”
His fingers brush mine. I don’t pull away.
We stand there, hands almost touching, looking out at the city. The silence between us isn’t empty. It’s full of everything we aren’t saying. Everything we’re waiting to say.
His hand closes over mine. His palm is warm, his grip gentle. His thumb traces circles on the back of my hand. The touch is small, careful, but it sends warmth spreading through my chest.
Neither of us lets go.