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“Jack, please.”
“No.”
His voice was no longer flat.
It was shaking.
“You don’t get to disappear for two years and then show up on Nana Martha’s porch with papers like you misplaced a sweater.”
Emma leaned against his chest.
“Nana,” she whispered, frightened now.
I reached for her, but Jackson held her tighter.
Not against me.
Against the world.
Rachel wiped her cheeks with the heel of her hand.
“I have a job now,” she said. “I have an apartment. I’ve been seeing a counselor. I have letters. I have proof.”
“Proof?” Jackson said. “You want to talk about proof?”
He pointed toward the house.
“There’s proof in there. Every bottle I washed. Every fever I sat through. Every class I almost failed because I was working nights. Every time she cried for a mother she didn’t even remember.”
Rachel looked down.
“I deserve that.”
“This isn’t about what you deserve.”
His voice dropped.
“This is about what she deserves.”
That sentence hung there.
Heavy.
Clean.
True.
Rachel nodded.
“You’re right.”
Then she looked at Emma.
Only for a second.
But it was enough.
“I’m not asking her to love me today,” she said. “I’m asking for the chance to earn whatever place is safe for her.”
Jackson laughed once.
There was no humor in it.
“Safe?”
“I know.”
“You left her.”
“I know.”