Silence again, but this time it felt shared, not empty.
“What happens now?” she asked after a while, and there was no edge in her voice, only uncertainty.
I looked toward the bedroom, where Noah was still sleeping, one hand curled loosely near his face, the other resting carefully in the sling.
“Now we deal with it,” I said. “Properly. No ignoring things because they’re inconvenient.”
She let out a breath that sounded like something leaving her body for good.
“I’ll do whatever it takes,” she said. “Counseling. Classes. Anything. I don’t want to lose him.”
The word lose hung between us, too large to ignore, too real to soften.
“This isn’t about promises right now,” I said. “It’s about what actually changes.”
She did not argue with that. For once, she did not try to turn it into something easier to hold.
“I’ll come by tomorrow,” she said finally. “If that’s okay. Just to see him. Not to… not to take him anywhere.”
I hesitated, not because I wanted to say no, but because every decision now felt like it carried more weight than before.
“We’ll see how he feels,” I said. “He gets to decide more than we do for a while.”
Another pause, then a quiet “okay” that sounded like she understood exactly what that meant.
When I hung up, the apartment felt different again, like something had been acknowledged that could not be taken back.
The next morning, Noah woke slowly, blinking against the light, his face tightening for a second before relaxing when he saw me.
“Dad,” he said, voice still thick with sleep.
“I’m right here,” I answered, already reaching for him before he asked.
He sat up carefully, testing his arm with a small movement, then stopping when it hurt.
“It still hurts,” he whispered, more observation than complaint.
“I know,” I said. “It’s gonna take a few days. We’ll go slow.”
He nodded, accepting that in the simple way children do when they trust the person saying it.
We stayed like that for a while, just sitting, not talking much, letting the morning settle around us.
At some point, he asked for cereal, then changed his mind and just drank milk, holding the cup with both hands despite the sling.
Every small action felt deliberate, like he was relearning how to move through something that had interrupted his normal.
When Lena arrived later, she knocked softly, not using her key, waiting until I opened the door before stepping inside.
Noah froze when he saw her, not out of fear exactly, but hesitation, like he did not know which version of her to expect.
She crouched down a few feet away, not reaching for him this time, not closing the distance without permission.
“Hi, baby,” she said gently.
He looked at her for a long moment, then glanced at me, then back at her.
“Hi,” he replied, quieter than usual.
That single exchange carried more weight than any apology she could have given.
She stayed for less than an hour, sitting on the edge of the couch, asking simple questions, accepting short answers.
Noah did not lean into her, but he did not pull away either. It was something in between, fragile and unfinished.
When she left, she did not try to hug him. She just said goodbye and waited for him to say it back.
He did.
Over the next weeks, everything moved slower than I expected, but also more clearly.
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