Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
Robert
I wear the front porch thin instead of knocking.
I keep going back and forth, the low scrape of my shoes the only thing keeping time with the pulse hammering under my ribs.
I’m holding two grocery bags that keep biting into my fingers enough to register, the contents shifting softly with each turn.
I stop in front of her door again and hold there, my gaze fixed on the wood like it’s going to move on its own.
It’s been a week.
Seven days of silence.
I gave her that at least. And it’s not because I wanted to, but because I chose to. There’s a huge fucking difference.
My hand lifts and drops once against the doorbell, my fingers pressing down the button.
It takes a minute but footsteps answer soon enough.
The lock clicks and the door opens.
And she’s there.
The porch light catches on cream silk first, sliding over the line of her shoulder, tucked into a pencil skirt that has wrinkled around the hips region. Her hair isn’t staged, it’s lived in. Slightly undone, like she’s been running her hands through it without thinking.
And to crown the easy look, she’s barefoot.
Her eyes lift to mine and hold for half a second too long before something in them reshuffles, recognition clicking into place.
“Robert…” She stutters. “What… What are you doing here?”
“Hi.” I lift the grocery bags, allowing a clipped smile to drag across my face.
“Hi?” Her eyes go ballistic, her brows reaching for her hairline.
“Robert!” Blue’s voice tears through the space, pulling my attention toward the sound.
She’s already running toward me, with her socked feet slapping softly against the floor and her arms swinging. Her balance is uneven but determined, like the distance between us is something she refuses to accept for more than a second.
Something blooms in my chest at the sight.
I feel it before I understand it, before I can name it, before I can decide what to do with it.
“Baby…” Christine moves, her hand lifting like she’s about to intercept, to slow it down, to put space back where she’s been trying to keep it all week.
But it doesn’t matter as Blue reaches me. She stops right in front of me, breaths quickly, her bright eyes looking up like she’s found something she’s been expecting without knowing she was waiting for it.
“It’s you.” She smiles, lifting her arms as if it’s the most natural thing in the world.
And that line… the one Christine’s been drawing. The one she’s been standing behind, holding, guarding, managing… I cross it.
I step over it as if it were never there.
My hands move before anything else does, dropping the bags to free one arm, then both, and I lift her like I’ve done it before.
Her weight is nothing compared to the things I lift, but familiar in a way that feels like a space was carved there waiting for her to curl into it. Her small arms loop around my neck, her breath tickling my neck, and that hits differently.
Christine moves in the same breath, quicker than she wants me to notice, bending to gather the bags I dropped, her fingers brushing against mine for half a second before she pulls back like contact is something she’s measuring now.
“So this is what we’re doing now?” Her voice comes out dry. “No one gave me the memo.” She straightens with the bags in her hands. “Unannounced visits with groceries?”
I hear the edge in her tone, but I ignore it all the same.
She exhales, pushing the door wider with her foot, stepping aside just enough to make space.
“Come in,” she adds, the sarcasm not fully masking the fact that she’s letting me.
I step inside.
Blue shifts slightly in my arms, turning her head to look at the floor like she’s checking something important.
“Shoes.” She pouts, suddenly serious.
I glance down, then back at her.
“Take them off,” she adds, nodding like she’s explaining something obvious.
“Yes, Ma’am.” I do, balancing her easily with one arm as I slip them off with the other, arranging them neatly by the door without needing to be told twice.
She watches the entire process with deep interest and a slight degree of scrutiny.
“Good.” She nods, satisfied. “Very good.”
I almost smile. Almost.
She turns back toward the sitting room immediately, her attention already moving ahead of us.
“I was watching something,” she tells me, like I’m already part of it. “It’s nice. And there’s popcorn.”
I follow where she’s looking to the glow of the TV with colors flickering, and voices singing something repetitive.
“Cocomelon,” she adds, proud of herself.
“Really?” I let out a quiet breath through my nose. “Is that so?”
“Yes,” she nods, then leans in slightly, lowering her voice like she’s about to share something important. “You can come and watch.”
She pauses, pulls back just enough to look at her mother, her eyes dropping.
“Can he join me?” She asks in a conspiratory tone.
Christine stands there for a second, the bags still in her hands, her eyes moving between us like she’s recalculating something that’s already out of her control.
“He can.” Finally, she nods, but I can tell it’s costing her something.
I see it.
“Oh.” Aisha doesn’t bother hiding hers, leaning back into the couch, a bowl of popcorn in her lap, her entire body language shifting the moment I step into view. “Wow,” she drawls, her gaze dragging over me like she’s assessing damage before it’s even been done. “This is… unexpected.”
Blue ignores her completely, already pinching at my shirt like she’s steering me where she wants.
“Come,” she insists.
I move, while Aisha’s eyes stay on me the entire time, unwelcoming, her mouth curving into something that isn’t a smile.
“You lost or something?” She adds, her tone light but not friendly.
“No.” I meet her gaze briefly.
“Hmm,” she hums, popping a piece of popcorn into her mouth like she’s settling in for a show she didn’t ask for but is fully prepared to critique. “Could’ve fooled me.”
Christine steps in behind me, the door clicking shut, the sound final in a way that rearranges the tension in the room.
The couch gives slightly when I sit.
Blue curls into me like she’s been doing it all evening, one leg thrown over mine, her back pressed against my chest, small fingers digging into the fabric of my shirt.
The screen flickers in front of us with colors and voices that loop and loop until they stop meaning anything.
Instead of looking at it, I’m looking at her.
The way she leans without thinking. The way her head tips back now and then to check if I’m still there. The way her hand finds mine and holds it like it’s the most natural thing in the world.
It shouldn’t feel like this.
It does.
“Eat,” Aisha chips from somewhere to the side, pushing the bowl slightly toward me like it’s an obligation.
Blue reaches for it and grabs a handful of popcorn.
“Take.” She turns, offering some to me without looking away from the screen.
“Blue… he doesn’t.” Christine tries once.
“Shhh,” Blue cuts in immediately, not even looking at her.
“Thank you.” I take it, smiling.
“What a night this is going to be.” Aisha lets out a short breath that sounds suspiciously like a laugh she’s trying to hold back.
A few minutes pass. Or more.
“Okay,” Christine tries again, stepping closer this time, her tone firmer. “That’s enough for tonight.”
“Shhh,” Blue repeats, louder now, her hand lifting slightly like she’s physically pushing the words away.
Christine exhales slowly, like she’s recalibrating, like she’s deciding which battle is worth it.
“This is your last one,” she clips instead, pointing at the screen.
Blue doesn’t answer. But she doesn’t argue either. And I’m starting to see that that’s as close to agreement as it gets.
The episode ends and another starts.
Christine steps forward and turns the TV off. And this time, Blue reacts.
“Mommy,” she protests, twisting slightly in my arms.
“It’s bedtime,” Christine replies, softer now, but unmoving.
Blue turns to me fully with wide, hopeful eyes. Like I have the final say.
“Let’s do what Mommy says.” I’ve had good practice, enough to know Mommy is always right.
“Story?” Blue asks. “You can read me one?”
“Story?” I almost choke the words out.
I know what that means. It’s routine. Familiarity. A place I haven’t been in years.
She leans in slightly, pressing closer.
“You will read for me, Robert?” She adds, quieter now, like she’s negotiating. Then she turns again to Christine with that same lowering of eyes and conspiratorial tone from earlier slipping into her voice. “Can he?”
The room holds its breath for a second.
Aisha looks at Christine. Christine looks at me. I look at the… Nothing.
Christine hesitates enough for it to be noticed, then exhales.
“Yes.” She nods, waving a hand dismissively.
“Yes!” Blue beams.
I rise with her, her weight both nothing and everything.
Her head drops against my shoulder as we move, the energy that filled her a second ago draining just as quickly, her grip loosening slightly against my shirt.
By the time we step out of the sitting room, her breathing has already changed to something slower and deeper.
I glance down.
Her lashes are resting against her cheeks, her mouth slightly parted, her body completely surrendered to sleep like the walk from the couch to her room was all it took.
I smile, carrying her the rest of the way while Christine leads.
Her room is different. Everything is smaller, lighter, built for her. The air holds that faint scent of powder and something sweet, something that doesn’t belong anywhere in my world.
I step inside carefully like the space demands it.
Christine is already beside me, moving without needing to be told, her presence slipping in close as I lower Blue onto the bed.
Blue doesn’t stir, even when her head leaves my shoulder. Not even when the mattress dips under her weight.
I take a second longer than necessary before I let go.
Christine steps in immediately, pulling the blanket up over her, smoothing it down with practiced hands, tucking the edges just enough to keep her in place without disturbing her sleep.
Her fingers brush gently over Blue’s hair. She leans down and presses a kiss to her forehead.
“Goodnight, baby,” she whispers.
It’s quiet, but it fills the room. And it fills something in me, like oil slipping through cracks, mending them.
I’ve seen this before. I’ve lived it. But in a different room and with a different woman.
My wife was standing where Christine stands now, softer than anything the world outside ever allowed her to be, her voice carrying the same warmth as she tucked our son, Ariel, night after night.
I used to stand like this. Right here. Watching. Thinking I could have both. That I could build something dangerous out there and come back to something safe here.
That the two worlds wouldn’t collide.
My heart folds as the memory comes back to haunt me.
Because I know how that ended. I know what it cost.
“Robert.” Christine’s voice slips through my thoughts.
I blink once, and the room comes back into focus.
“Are you okay?” She straightens slowly, her eyes on me now, watching in a way that tells me she noticed.
“Yeah.” I look at the child lying in front of me and feel something I haven’t allowed myself to feel in a long time.
Something I don’t know how to contain.
“Christine.” I clear my throat, turning to her. “You know why I came, right?” Whatever distance she’s been holding onto all night, I close it.
My hands come up before she can move, before she can step back or turn away or rebuild whatever wall she’s been hiding behind.
I cup her face, leaving no room for escape, my fingers stroking along her jaw, my thumbs beneath her cheekbones.
“Robert…” She inhales deeply. “Let’s not…”
“Look at me.”
“I can’t.” She tries to turn her head.
“Don’t,” I murmur, quieter now, closer, my forehead almost brushing hers. “Don’t do that.”
Her lashes flutter before she looks at me.
And I see everything she’s been holding back. Everything she hasn’t said. It’s all there.
I already know. But I need to hear it. I need it said.
“Is she mine?” I ask.
Her breath catches, her eyes flickering again like she’s searching for something to hold onto, something that lets her step around it.
There isn’t anything.
“Christine…” My voice drops… rawer. “Don’t lie to me.”
Her lips part. Close. Part again.
A second passes. Then another, the room holding still around us, like even the air is waiting.
“Yes.” She breathes out. It’s quiet. Barely there.
But it hits with the same force as gravity.
I am a father.
Again.