Chapter 26
Elyna
I reached the door of the daycare and looked up to the camera and pressed the bell.
It was the regular routine for anyone who wanted to enter.
The door made a buzzing sound and I stepped inside.
The familiar scent of crayons, paint, food, and something faintly lemony wrapped around me.
Afternoon light poured through the big picture windows as I walked up to the door of Braden’s class.
I spotted Braden instantly standing and holding on to a table, his cheeks pink.
A tiny girl was playing beside him. She must have been a few months older than him because she was walking already.
“Hi, my love,” I breathed.
His head snapped up, recognizing my voice, then a slow smile spread his lips filled with warmth and love.
One of his hands windmilled while he used the other to hold himself steady.
His teacher took hold of both of his hands and helped him walk across the mat to me.
I scooped him up, pressing his warm cheek to mine, breathing him in.
“He had a great day,” Ms. Patty said smiling. “He ate well, napped an hour, played a lot. He likes the musical toys.”
“Yes, he does at home too.” I kissed his temple, whispering so only he could hear, “Mama’s here.”
We went through the routine sign-out sheet. They returned his empty bottle and his sippy cup. I was given a baggie of art that was mostly orange smears labeled Braden pumpkins.
“Oh, one quick reminder?” I said at the door, trying to keep my voice even. “It’s just me who picks him up. No one else.” I’d told them during enrollment, told them again yesterday. Today I said it softer and tighter.
“Of course,” Ms. Patty said unfazed.
Back outside, the air had shifted from warm to that late-afternoon cool Val-Du-Lys gets when the wind comes down from the hills.
I tucked Braden’s blanket around him, thinking about what to make for supper, about warmer clothes for winter because he was growing so fast, about how Phoenix promised to stand by us, protect us.
And then I saw it.
The door of my small car, slick with wet, dripping paint. Red. Loud. One word, so big it swallowed the whole panel.
SLUT.
For a second, I didn’t hear traffic or the daycare laughter behind me, or even Braden’s quiet babble. Everything went silent, except my heart punching at my ribs. The paint ran in fat tears down the metal, pooling along the crease of the doors. Fresh. Whoever had done it hadn’t been gone long.
Heat shot up my neck, shame and rage arriving in the same breath. Shame, because that word knows how to aim. Rage, because someone had chosen this at a daycare, of all places, to mark me. To humiliate me as a warning.
My knees wobbled. “It’s okay, baby,” I said, except my voice didn’t sound like mine. “It’s okay, it’s okay.”
Braden blinked up at me, thumb pushing at his mouth, reassured by nothing but the fact I was there.
This wasn’t random. Colette’s voice from lunch rang in my mind.
She knew which daycare Braden attended; ice rolled down my spine.
She’d come to gloat, to remind me she knew where he was.
To bring up my mother like a weapon and now this was just plain cruel.
I shouldn’t have been blamed for my mother’s mistakes.
Only I made a bunch of my own mistakes too.
With shaky hands I placed Braden into his car seat, buckled him with fingers that couldn’t stop trembling, then wiped my palms on my jeans and gripped the wheel hard enough for my fingers to ache.
I didn’t think. I just drove. Street after tree-lined street, down past the edge of Maple Valley where the orchard rows began and across the paved drive to the garage with the loft above it.
The place I’d started to allow myself to think of as home.
Phoenix’s truck was already there, tailgate down, neat stacks of boxes and a toolbox lined up like soldiers. He was at the foot of the stairs, sleeves shoved to his elbows, hair mussed from the wind. He took one look at me climbing out of the car and went very, very still.
“What happened?” His voice was low and panicked.
“At daycare. Someone…” The word stuck like glass in my throat.
I couldn’t bring it up again, couldn’t give it more space in the air.
He was beside me in three strides, lifting Braden from the car seat with surprising gentleness for such big hands, then tugging me into his chest with his free arm.
The solid line of him, the way he tucked my head under his jaw and braced us both, as if he could take every ounce of shaking from my body and hold it himself.
“You’re trembling,” he said.
“I. . .I,” I couldn’t connect thoughts to words. “It’s so… loud. Everyone could see. At a daycare.” The last word fractured.
“I know.” He pressed his mouth to my hair. “You’re home now.” The word home slid under my ribs and loosened something. Braden made a little hiccupping sound between us, and Phoenix rubbed his back in slow circles. “Let’s get inside.”
He walked us up the stairs, one arm full of my son, the other around me, and I let myself lean.
Inside the loft the world narrowed to ordinary objects that suddenly meant everything: the futon, the neat line of Braden’s stacking cups, the crib Phoenix had built in an evening.
Phoenix set my son on his play mat with his toy fox, then turned back to me with that dark stormy focus that always finds me where I am.
“We’re calling my dad,” he said simply, already reaching for his phone. “Now.”
“Phoenix, I. . .”
“No,” he asserted. “We do this properly. Riley and Colette Jansen are not going to bully you.”
He put the phone on speaker, and when Pierre’s deep voice answered, Phoenix’s tone didn’t waver. “Dad, It’s Phoenix. I’m with Elyna at the loft. Someone vandalized her car at the daycare. Red paint. A slur.”
Silence.
Then Pierre’s voice flattened into cold steel. “Is she safe? Is Braden with you?”
“Yes,” Phoenix assured, his tone steady and unwavering while I felt completely choked up. “I’m installing cameras and extra locks tonight.” His hand brushed my arm, an anchor. “We’ll leave the car as is. You’ll want photos.”
“You’ve learned well over the years. Too bad you didn’t want to join the force.
” I could almost see Pierre’s jaw tighten through the phone.
“I’ll send a unit to the loft to document before the rain.
Tomorrow afternoon, Elyna, I’ll need your statement at the station.
Phoenix, keep her with people. Do not leave her alone.
” He accentuated each word with worried purpose.
“We’re at the loft,” Phoenix said. “I’m here.”
“Good. Elyna, ma fille, I’m sorry this happened. We’re going to handle it.”
“Thank you,” I whispered. It came out hoarse.
After he hung up, Phoenix kissed me once, quick and firm, like a promise sealed.
Then the boxes hit the counter, and he was in motion working to ensure my son and I were safe.
The old deadbolt came off in two minutes and he replaced it with a heavier one.
Every turn of the screwdriver sounded like a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding.
He swapped the flimsy chain for a door guard.
He mounted a doorbell camera, angling it perfectly to catch the stairs.
He wired a motion light above the landing, set to bathe the deck in white the moment anything moved out there.
“Hand me the level?” he asked, and I realized I was hovering uselessly at the edge of the kitchen. I passed it over, grateful to have a job, even a small one. I watched in awe as he worked with such diligence. It shouldn’t have surprised me, but it did. His care and attention warmed my heart.
“Wi-Fi?” he asked.
“Password’s on the fridge,” I said, fingers steadying as I spelled out the random string of letters and numbers. His phone chimed once, then again Device connected. The app preview popped up, the stairs and our door right there on his screen, a narrow slice of new power.
“Done,” he said, more to himself than to me.
He then moved to the bedroom to place a small indoor camera high on the bookshelf angled toward the window and crib, not invasive, not pointed at the bed. “Front windows. Just in case someone decides the stairs feel too public.”
I nodded, hating we needed it while feeling relieved we had it.
We reheated yesterday’s leftovers and ate standing at the counter, Braden in his high chair taking a part a piece of toast and watching his new ceiling light like it was the moon.
Every time Phoenix’s phone buzzed with a motion alert, he glanced down.
Cat on the deck. Car lights sweeping the orchard road.
It didn’t fix the twist in my stomach, but it eased it into something I could breathe around.
After dinner, he wiped Braden’s hands with care and sweet smiles and lifted him from the chair like he’d always done it.
While I got the bath for Braden ready, Phoenix was on the floor playing with him.
Having him here felt amazing and scary, but I chose to focus only on the good.
Phoenix hung out in the bathroom while I bathed Braden.
My boy kicked his feet in the water and played with his bath toys.
After the bath, Phoenix held the towel up and I wrapped Braden up and carried him over to the king-size bed, where I had a sleeper waiting for him.
“Can I place him in the crib?” Phoenix asked.
I felt my lower lip quiver. We hadn’t defined our relationship. I knew I was the only woman in his life. I knew he said he was dedicated to us and not going anywhere. Maybe labels were childish but I needed more than promises, and yet I was terrified of making them.
“Sure,” I swallowed. He was being so good to us and Braden liked him so much.
This was another way they would bond. He placed him in the crib and tucked the blanket the way he watched me do many times, his big fingers brushing tenderly over my son’s hair.
Braden sighed, fingers splayed on the fitted sheet, already halfway to dreaming.
We both stepped out to the main room. Silence radiated between us like a comfortable blanket. Phoenix unrolled a thick blanket on the futon and set a folded hoodie at one end like a pillow.
“You don’t have to sleep out here,” I said, the words more reflex than resistance. My voice tore right in the middle.
He looked up steady, gentle, unshakable.
“I know I don’t have to. I am going to. I think I should stay here until things settle,” he said, flooring me.
It wasn’t an “I want us to move in together.” It was Phoenix being his protective self.
My gut twisted because if this was happening, I didn’t want it to be forced.
I wanted him to want to be here for me and Braden and not because our safety was at risk.
My throat tightened. “Phoenix… that isn’t necessary.”
“I’m not leaving you alone until things settle down,” he said, rising to close the blinds, pausing at each window to check the latch. “Let me take care of you and Braden.”
“You’ll get sick of me,” I said lightly, because it was easier than telling him how I really felt. I was falling in love with him. That if he was staying here, I wanted it to be because he felt the same.
He snorted a soft breath of incredulity. “Not possible.”
He dimmed the lights. The motion sensor washed the deck in white and then clicked off again. He sat on the edge of the futon and held out a hand. I crossed the small space and took it.
“Sit with me,” he said.
We did. We sat shoulder to shoulder, knees touching, the kind of quiet that isn’t empty but full. His palm was rough and warm around mine, thumb drawing steady circles.
“Do you want to talk about it?” he asked after a minute.
“Yes,” I said and meant it. “And also no.”
“We can do both.” The corner of his mouth tipped up.
He let me choose the silence and then filled it with small things.
He told me about the batch of saison that had gone a little too wild in secondary and how Cooper swore the yeast was haunted.
He described the new tables he wanted for the beer garden next spring with wide planks, lighter stain, and more room for strollers.
He asked me if the daycare’s drop-off loop felt safe with the morning rush, and whether I wanted him to walk with us tomorrow.
“Yes, it’s safe. Besides, I think we need to live our lives in a way that doesn’t show fear,” I said.
“You’re so brave. I’m in awe of you,” he replied.
When my eyes burned, he pretended not to notice and only tightened his fingers around mine. When my phone buzzed with a weather alert and I flinched before I saw the banner, he reached across my lap and set it face down on the coffee table.
We brushed teeth in the bathroom. He reclaimed the futon, stretching out, one forearm under his head, facing the door.
I climbed into bed and lay on my side, staring through the crack of the barely parted blinds and the dark line where orchard became sky.
Somewhere down the deck, the motion light blinked on, and Phoenix’s phone chimed a soft ding. He glanced, then set it back down.
“Will you sleep?” he asked the ceiling.
“I think so,” I said. “Because you’re here.”
His exhale was quiet and satisfied. “Good.”
A beat passed. Two. The kind of hush you only get on a property like Maple Valley, tucked between trees and the soft spine of hills. My breathing slowed to match his.
“Phoenix?” I whispered.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“Always,” he said. And then, after a moment, so soft I almost missed it, “Tu n’es plus seule.”
You’re not alone anymore.
The words filled my heart, giving me warmth.
My emotional exhaustion kicked in and I let my eyes close.
I let the cameras keep watch and the man on the futon be the wall between the world and my son.
For the first time in a long time, the dark didn’t feel like loneliness.
It felt safe and warm, like a blanket tucked to my chin.
Outside, the motion light clicked on and off once more. Phoenix’s breathing evened out. He said he was staying, that I wouldn’t be alone anymore.
This time I believed him.