Chapter 26
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
The bungalow felt different now.
Tyler stood in the kitchen doorway, coffee in hand, watching Stella eat cereal at the counter. She’d colonized the space over the months—her photography books stacked by the window, her prints taped to the fridge, her jacket perpetually draped over the back of the couch.
It didn’t feel small anymore. It felt like home.
“Stop staring,” Stella said without looking up. “It’s creepy.”
“I’m not staring. I’m... observing.”
“That’s what creepy people say.”
“I’m observing my daughter eating breakfast in my kitchen. That’s allowed.”
“Barely.” She took another bite of cereal. “You’re thinking something. I can hear it from here.”
Tyler sat down across from her. The morning light caught the side of her face, and he noticed—not for the first time—how much she looked like him. The same jaw, the same way her eyebrows drew together when she was concentrating. Walsh features, Margo called them.
“Your mum’s flight is this afternoon,” he said.
Stella’s spoon paused halfway to her mouth. “I know.”
“How are you feeling about that?”
“Weird. Good weird, I think.” She set down the spoon. “We talked last night. After the biscuit thing with Margo. She’s going to teach me Nana’s recipes. The whole thing. All the cards with her handwriting.”
“That’s a big deal.”
“Yeah.” Stella traced a pattern on the counter with her finger.
Fiona, letting go. A week ago, she’d been ready to drag Stella back to Sydney by force. Now she was passing down family secrets.
“She’s changed,” he said.
“She’s trying.” Stella met his eyes. “That’s different, but it’s still something.”
“It’s a lot.”
“Yeah.”
They sat quietly, in a way that had become easy between them. Outside, a car drove past. Someone’s dog barked. The ordinary sounds of a neighborhood waking up.
“I need to tell you something,” Tyler said.
Stella’s expression sharpened. “Good something or bad something?”
“Legal something.” He pulled out his phone, opened the document Lindsey had sent him. “Your mum signed the guardianship papers this morning. It’s filed. Official. Done.”
Stella went very still.
“You’re—I’m—”
“You’re staying. Officially. Legally. Permanently, if that’s what you want.” Tyler slid the phone across to her. “This makes it real. Not just us saying it—real. On paper.”
Stella stared at the screen. Tyler watched her read through the document, watched her eyes move over the legal language that meant she belonged here now.
Stella’s eyes were bright. She blinked rapidly, jaw tight, trying to hold it together the way she always did.
“Hey,” Tyler said softly. “You’re allowed to feel things about this.”
“I know. I jus—” She pressed her hands flat on the counter. “I’ve been waiting for the catch. For months. Waiting for something to go wrong, for someone to change their mind, for the whole thing to fall apart. And now it’s not falling apart and I don’t know what to do with that.”
“You could try being happy.”
“I am happy. I’m also terrified.”
“Those things can coexist.”
“Since when are you wise?”
“I’ve been practicing. Margo gives lessons on Thursdays.”
Stella laughed—wet and shaky, but real. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand.
“So I’m really staying. And Mum’s really okay with it.”
“Or she’s getting there. Same difference.”
Stella nodded slowly, processing. Then her expression shifted into something Tyler recognized — the look she got when she was about to say something uncomfortable.
“What?” he asked.
“I need you to promise me something.”
“Okay...”
“Promise me you’ll actually have a life.”
Tyler blinked. “I have a life.”
“You have me. That’s not the same thing.
” Stella fixed him with a look that was uncomfortably perceptive.
“I’m going to be at school during the day and working at the Shack after.
I’m going to have friends and homework and probably some kind of social life eventually.
And you can’t just sit around waiting for me to need you. ”
“I don’t sit around —”
“You’ve been on zero dates since I’ve been here. Zero.”
“How do you know how many dates I’ve been on?”
“Meg tells Bea everything and Bea tells me everything. It’s a very efficient information network.” Stella crossed her arms. “The guidance counselor. Lindsey. She seems nice.”
Tyler choked on his coffee. “We are not having this conversation.”
“We’re absolutely having this conversation. She laughs at your jokes. I’ve seen her do it.”
“She probably laughs at everyone’s jokes. She’s a guidance counselor. It’s part of the job.”
“She wouldn’t laugh at Bernie’s jokes.”
“Nobody laughs at Bernie’s jokes.”
“Exactly my point.” Stella leaned forward. “Ask her out. For real. On an actual date, not just coffee in her office while you pretend to have questions about enrollment.”
“I had real questions about enrollment!”
“You had three questions and you stretched them into an hour and a half.”
Tyler opened his mouth to protest, then closed it. She wasn’t wrong.
“I’m serious,” Stella said, her voice softening. “I don’t want you to put your life on hold for me. I did that to Mum—made her feel like she couldn’t do anything without considering me first — and it wasn’t fair to either of us.”
“That’s different.”
“It’s not that different.” Stella reached across the counter, touched his arm. “You spent sixteen years not being my dad because Mum wouldn’t let you. Now you get to be my dad and have a life. Both things. At the same time.”
Tyler looked at his daughter—this fierce, observant, occasionally terrifying person who had appeared in his life and rearranged everything.
“When did you get so smart?” he asked.
“Always been smart.”
They smiled at each other across the counter.
“Okay,” Tyler said. “I’ll ask her out.”
“Really?”
“Really. But you don’t get to know how it goes.”
“I’ll find out anyway. Information network, remember?”
Tyler laughed — really laughed, the kind that came from somewhere deep.
“Fine,” he said. “One condition.”
“What?”
“If I ask Lindsey out, you have to promise not to make it weird.”
“Define weird.”
“No lurking. No ‘accidental’ encounters. No pumping her for information about me.”
“Those are three conditions.”
“They’re subclauses of the same condition.”
“That’s not how conditions work.”
“It’s how they work in this house.”
Stella considered this. “Okay, but if she comes to Sunday dinner, I get to talk to her.”
“She’s not coming to Sunday dinner. We haven’t even gone on a date yet.”
“But when she comes to Sunday dinner—”
“If. If she comes to Sunday dinner. Which she won’t. Because we haven’t even—”
“You’re spiraling.”
“I’m not spiraling. I’m being reasonable.”
“You’re spiraling about a hypothetical Sunday dinner with a woman you haven’t asked out yet.” Stella grinned. “This is going to be fun.”
Tyler dropped his head into his hands. “I’m going to regret this conversation.”
“Probably. But you’ll thank me eventually.”
“I really won’t.”
“You really will.” She paused at the door. “Hey.”
“Yeah?”
“Thanks. For fighting for me. For making this real.”
Tyler felt his throat tighten. “That’s what dads do.”
“I know.” She smiled — soft and real, none of her usual armor. “That’s why I’m thanking you.”
Tyler sat alone in the kitchen, coffee cooling in his hands, and let himself feel the weight of the moment. His daughter, staying. The paperwork, final. The future, open.
And somewhere in that future, apparently, a date with a guidance counselor.
He picked up his phone. Scrolled to Lindsey’s number. Typed a message.
Hey — any chance you’re free for dinner this week? Actual dinner, not coffee in your office. Tyler
His thumb hovered over the send button.
Stella’s voice echoed in his head. Both things. At the same time.
He hit send.
Three dots appeared almost immediately.
I thought you’d never ask. Friday?
Tyler smiled.
Maybe his daughter was right. Maybe he could have both things.
Maybe this was what happy looked like.