Chapter 360

[ 1,222 words ]

Katia’s POV

I woke up to the sound of small feet in the hallway.

I sat up in bed, still half asleep, and by the time my eyes adjusted to the dark, Aiden was already standing in my doorway in his pajamas, clutching the edge of his blanket in one hand.

“Baby, what’s wrong?” I said, pulling the covers back so he could climb in beside me. “Did you have a bad dream p>

He shook his head and climbed onto the bed anyway, curling up close to me the way he used to when he was much smaller, his knees pulled up to his chest.

“I can’t sleep,” he said.

“Why not p>

He didn’t answer right away. I waited, running my hand slowly over his hair, and after a while he spoke again, his voice small in the dark room.

“When I used to stay at Gigi’s and Aunt Gail’s, Dad would come by at night,” he said. “He would read me a story. Sometimes two if I asked nicely enough. And then he would fall asleep on my bed because he said the chair hurt his back.” He paused. “I miss him p>

I didn’t say anything for a moment. I kept my hand moving through his hair, giving myself a second to figure out how to answer my son honestly without unloading things on him that belonged to the adults in his life and not to him.

“I know you do,” I said finally.

“Is he coming back?” Aiden asked.

“I don’t know yet,” I said. “There are some things your dad and I need to work out first p>

“Is it because you’re mad at him p>

I looked down at him. He was watching me with the kind of clear, honest attention that children gave adults right before they asked a question nobody in the room actually wanted to answer.

“Yes,” I said. “I am mad at him. But that has nothing to do with how much he loves you, and it has nothing to do with you at all. Do you understand that p>

He nodded, though I wasn’t sure he fully understood it the way I meant it. A single tear slipped down his cheek, and he wiped it away fast, the way boys his age did when they were embarrassed about crying even in front of their own mother.

Something in my chest cracked open watching that.

I had spent the last two days building a wall around this house, telling myself I was protecting something, protecting my own dignity, my own right to be angry, my own need to make Julian feel even a fraction of what he had put me through. And all of that had felt completely justified until I was sitting in the dark holding my son while he cried quietly into my shoulder because he missed his father.

“Go back to your room,” I said gently. “I’ll be there in a minute p>

He looked up at me, confused.

“Go,” I said. “I promise p>

He climbed off the bed slowly and padded back down the hallway toward his own room. I sat there for a moment longer, staring at the space where he had been, and then I got up, pulled a coat over my nightclothes, and walked downstairs.

I opened the front door.

Julian was still there.

He was sitting on the top step of the porch, his jacket gone, his shirt untucked, looking like a man who had lost track of how many hours he had been out in the cold. He looked up when he heard the door, and something in his face shifted the moment he saw me standing there instead of the security guard he had probably expected.

“Katia,” he said, standing quickly.

“Come inside,” I said.

He stared at me for a second like he thought he had misheard.

“Your son is awake,” I said. “He can’t sleep. He wants his father to read him a story, the way you apparently have been doing every single night at Gigi’s house for a year without me knowing a single thing about it.” I kept my voice even. “So go upstairs. Go to his room. He needs you p>

Julian moved toward the door.

I stepped slightly to block it, just enough to make him stop.

“You do not come near the main bedroom,” I said. “Not tonight. Not until I say otherwise. You go straight to Aiden’s room, and when he falls asleep, you leave the way you came p>

“I understand,” Julian said.

He said it quietly, without any of the argument I had expected from him standing on that porch two nights ago, without any of the entitlement that had colored every word he threw at me through the intercom the last time he stood at this door. He just looked at me, tired and stripped of whatever composure he usually carried into every room he walked into, and nodded once.

“Thank you,” he said. “For letting me in p>

I stepped aside and let him pass.

I watched him walk up the staircase, taking the steps two at a time the moment he was out of my direct line of sight, moving with the urgency of a man who had spent two days wanting exactly this and had finally been given permission to have it.

I stood in the hallway for a long moment after he disappeared around the corner, listening.

A few minutes later, I heard Aiden’s door open, heard the low murmur of Julian’s voice, and then Aiden’s voice answering back, brighter than it had been all night, asking him something I couldn’t quite make out from downstairs.

I walked to the bottom of the staircase and sat down on the second step, my hand resting against the cool wood of the banister, and listened to the sound of my son’s laughter drifting down from his room for the first time in days.

I did not go up right away.

I stayed there for a long time, in the quiet, letting myself feel whatever it was I was feeling without trying to name it or organize it into something easier to carry. Eventually the sound from Aiden’s room settled into silence, and I climbed the stairs myself to check.

Julian was still sitting on the edge of Aiden’s bed, one hand resting lightly on our son’s back, watching him sleep. He looked up when he heard me in the doorway.

“He’s out,” he said quietly.

“I can see that,” I said.

He stood carefully, easing himself off the bed without disturbing the blankets, and followed me out into the hallway, pulling the door most of the way closed behind him.

“I should go,” he said.

“You are not driving anywhere at this hour,” I said. “You look like you have not slept properly in two days, and I am not having you fall asleep behind the wheel three blocks from this house.” I crossed my arms and looked at him. “Use the guestroom p>

He looked at me for a long moment.

“Katia,” he said.

“Do not make this into something it is not,” I said. “This is for Aiden. If he wakes up again tonight, I want you in the house, not driving back from a hotel across town. That is the only reason p>

“I understand,” he said.

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