23. Amara
AMARA
The park bench is damp. I should've brought something to sit on, but June was already racing ahead toward the swings and I didn't want to lose sight of her. So now my jeans are soaking through and the cold seeps into my bones while gray clouds press down overhead.
June pumps her legs on the swing, hair flying behind her with each arc.
A few other kids scatter across the playground—toddlers in puffy jackets, an older boy doing tricks on the monkey bars.
Their parents cluster near the fence, scrolling phones or making small talk that sounds forced even from this distance.
Nobody's recognized us yet. Small miracle. The media frenzy has died down enough that we can venture outside without cameras materializing from thin air, but I still check over my shoulder compulsively. Still scan faces for the too-interested stare, the phone angled just wrong.
My own phone vibrates in my pocket. I ignore it. Probably another email from a journalist trying a different angle, or Maria checking in again, or Katheryn with updates about exhibition logistics I can't process right now.
Or Cassian. Always a possibility.
He stopped calling after the first week.
Texts came sporadically after that, then petered out entirely.
I told myself it was what I wanted. Distance, space, time to figure out how to protect June from the mess our lives have become, but some traitorous part of me checks my phone anyway, looking for his name.
It's never there anymore.
"Mama, watch!"
June launches herself off the swing mid-arc, lands hard on woodchips, stumbles but catches herself. She throws her arms up like a gymnast sticking a landing.
"Did you see?"
"I saw. Very impressive. Please don't break your neck."
She grins and runs back for another attempt. The fearlessness of five-year-olds is both beautiful and terrifying. No concept of consequences, just pure forward momentum.
Must be nice.
My phone buzzes again. This time I pull it out.
Katheryn's name fills the screen.
I answer. "Hey."
"You sound as miserable as I expected."
I sigh, closing my eyes. "Thanks."
"I'm calling with news. Not good news, but news you need to hear." A pause. Papers rustling in the background. "Black Lake tabled the collaboration. Lucian called an hour ago. Said they need time to rebuild investor confidence before moving forward with new initiatives."
The words settle like stones dropped in still water, sinking slow.
"So we're done."
"Not done. Tabled. There's still hope that the collaboration will bear fruit sometime in the future."
"Sounds like corporate speak for 'we're too scared of bad press to follow through.'"
"It is exactly that. Leonard Hart pulled his investments and convinced three others to do the same. Lucian's playing defense until the dust settles. But the Sapphire exhibition is still happening. Your solo show, your work, your vision. We don't need Black Lake's approval for that."
I watch June climb the ladder to the slide.
"When's the opening?"
"Four weeks, if you're up for that. I pushed the timeline up. Better to capitalize on the attention while people still remember your name."
"Capitalize on the scandal, you mean."
"Call it what you want. Attention is attention. We'll make sure the work is so extraordinary that nobody can dismiss it as tabloid fodder." She pauses. "You still working?"
"Every day."
"Good. Keep going. This is your moment, Amara. Don't let Raylin Hart or Lucian Griffin or anyone else steal it from you."
We hang up. I shove the phone back in my pocket and stare at the playground without really seeing it.
Tabled. Not cancelled, just postponed indefinitely while Black Lake waits for the scandal to fade. Which means Cassian's father believes I'm still toxic, still too risky to associate with publicly.
I can't really blame him. My face has been on gossip sites for weeks, and every decision I've made in the last six years is being dissected by strangers who don't know anything about survival or motherhood or what it costs to build a life from nothing.
June slides down and lands in a crouch. She's collected a handful of woodchips and is examining them with scientific seriousness. She brings them to me with an open palm.
"Look, Mommy. These ones are different colors."
"That's because they're from different trees."
"Which tree is the best tree?"
"I don't think trees compete like that, baby."
She considers this. "I think the oak tree is the best because squirrels live in it."
Hard to argue with that logic.
She abandons the woodchips and runs toward the jungle gym. I follow at a distance, close enough to intervene if she does something catastrophically stupid, far enough to let her feel independent.
Another kid approaches her—a girl maybe a year older, pink jacket, blonde pigtails. They exchange words I can't hear. Then the other girl points at June and says something that makes June's face crumple.
I'm on my feet before I realize I've moved.
By the time I reach them, June's backing away, hands balled into fists at her sides. The other girl is smirking in that specific way kids do when they know they've landed a blow.
"What's going on?"
The blonde girl looks up at me with wide, innocent eyes. "Nothing. I was just asking if her daddy's super rich."
Ice floods my veins. "Go find your parents."
"But—"
"Now."
She scurries off. I crouch down to June's level. Her eyes are wet but she's not crying yet, holding it together through sheer stubbornness.
"What did she say?"
"She said my daddy's famous and that means I'm famous too, but I don't have a daddy so she's lying." Her voice cracks. "Right, Mama? She's lying?"
My heart shatters. Every decision I've made, every choice to protect her from the truth, all of it collapsing under the weight of one question I'm not ready to answer.
"Baby—"
"I don't have a daddy. Just you. That's what you always said."
"I know. I know I did. But—" The words stick in my throat. "It's complicated."
"What does complicated mean?"
"It means there are things I need to explain to you. Important things. But not here, okay? Not right now."
She stares at me with those hazel eyes and I watch her trying to make sense of information that doesn't fit the story I've given her. The confusion breaks my heart even more than the hurt.
"Can we go home?"
"Yeah, sweet girl. We can go home."
I take her hand. We leave the playground without looking back. The walk to our apartment is silent except for the city noise—cars, construction, someone's music bleeding from open windows. June doesn't ask more questions. She just grips my hand tighter than usual and stays close to my side.
By the time we reach our building, the sky's started spitting rain. Cold drops that promise heavier weather later. We climb the stairs to our floor, and June goes straight to her room without being told. I hear the door close softly.
I stand in the hallway for a long moment, keys still in my hand, jacket dripping on the floor.
A strong sense of despondency looms over me.
How am I supposed to fix this mess? How do I shield my daughter from the cruelties of this world, the same ones who want to tear her apart like they're tried to do with me?
After a few minutes, June appears in the doorway of her room, clutching the pink plastic bracelet she made for me.
"Mama?"
"Yeah, baby?"
"I'm not famous, right?"
"No. You're just June."
She nods, sniffling. Then she walks over and climbs into my lap even though she's getting too big for this, all legs and sharp elbows digging into my ribs.
"I don't want to be famous. I just want to be with you."
Tears burn behind my eyes. I wrap my arms around her and press my face into her curls that smell like kid shampoo and woodchips.
"You'll always have me. Always. No matter what."
"Even if I have a daddy?"
The question nearly undoes me. "Even then."
She's quiet for a minute. "Does my daddy know about squids?"
Despite everything, I almost smile at the memories of Cassian sitting at her dining room table as June bombarded him with her squid facts. "I don't know. Maybe."
"I could teach him. If he wants to learn."
"I think he'd like that."
She hands me the pink bracelet. "You should have this back. It always makes you feel better."
I take it, fingers closing around the cheap plastic that's somehow become the most valuable thing I own. "Thank you, baby."
"You're welcome. You're the best mama ever."
She says it with such conviction, like it's an observable fact instead of her opinion. And the dam behind my eyes cracks open. All the walls I've built, all the defenses I've maintained, crumbles under the weight of her unconditional love.
"I love you so much, June."
"I love you more. To the ocean and back. That's farther than space."
She wiggles off my lap and returns to her room, already distracted by whatever project she's abandoned. I sit there holding the bracelet while rain starts hitting the windows harder, drumming a constant rhythm.
I don't need Cassian to be happy. June and I have built something here—a life, a routine, a world that works even when it's hard. We don't need his money or his name or whatever complicated legacy comes with being a Griffin.
But maybe June deserves the chance to know him anyway. Not because I need him, but because she deserves every piece of herself, even the parts that scare me.
I put the bracelet on my wrist. The elastic barely holds but it fits.
I'll figure out what to tell her soon. How to explain fathers who appear after five years, media circuses, all the messy adult difficulties she shouldn't have to carry on her little shoulders.
But tonight, I'm just grateful she still believes I'm the best mama ever, even when I'm not sure I believe it myself.