The phone rang once.
Twice.
Aunt Evelyn looked at me, waiting for my choice.
Uncle Richard stood by the window with the envelope in one hand and the old photograph in the other. Rain traced silver paths down the glass behind him. His face had hardened into that quiet, unreadable expression I’d seen only once before, when I was sixteen and my father had told him not to come around if he intended to “interfere.”
My phone kept ringing.
“Do you want me to answer?” Richard asked.
I almost said yes. I almost let him stand between me and whatever was coming, the way he seemed built to do. But then Noah made a tiny sound in his bassinet, a soft, breathy sigh that turned his mouth into a little bow.
I looked at my son and thought of the years ahead.
The birthday parties. The fevers. The first day of school. The moments when he would look at me to decide whether the world was safe.
