Sophie tugged Daniel’s sleeve.
“Can we go home?”
Daniel looked down.
Everything else became secondary.
“Yes.”
He picked her up.
At seven, Sophie was almost too big to carry comfortably.
Daniel did it anyway.
She wrapped both arms around his neck.
Rebecca stepped aside.
“I’ll come by later.”
Daniel nodded.
Mrs. Alvarez walked toward them.
“I’m sorry, Mr. Cole.”
“You did nothing wrong.”
“I should’ve called you when he parked here.”
“You didn’t know.”
She looked at Sophie.
“You want your backpack?”
Sophie had forgotten it entirely.
She nodded.
Mrs. Alvarez retrieved it.
As Daniel crossed toward his house, he could feel Caleb watching from inside the patrol car.
He did not look back.
Sophie did.
Her chin rested on Daniel’s shoulder.
“Dad?”
“Yeah?”
“Is he really my uncle?”
Daniel stopped walking.
He had hoped for another ten minutes before this conversation.
Maybe another ten years.
He looked toward their house.
Then toward his daughter.
“Yes.”
Sophie’s forehead wrinkled.
“Like Uncle Marcus?”
“No.”
Daniel almost smiled.
“Different kind.”
“Does he know Mom?”
“He knew her a long time ago.”
“Does he know me?”
“Not really.”
“Then why did he say I wasn’t yours?”
Daniel’s chest tightened.
“He was wrong.”
“But I am yours?”
Daniel shifted her weight and looked directly into her gray eyes.
“You are my daughter.”
“Forever?”
“Forever.”
Sophie considered that.
Then rested her head against his shoulder.
“Okay.”
Daniel carried her home.
Only after closing the front door did his hands begin shaking.
The house had once belonged to Hannah’s grandmother.
White siding.
Blue shutters.
A wraparound porch Hannah insisted they keep even when a contractor called it impractical.
Photographs covered the hallway.
Sophie at three wearing rain boots on the wrong feet.
Hannah laughing beside a Christmas tree.
Daniel holding Sophie on his shoulders at the beach.
The three of them at the courthouse on adoption day.
That photograph was Daniel’s favorite.
Sophie wore a yellow dress and held a stuffed rabbit.
Hannah cried so hard the judge handed her tissues.
Daniel tried to look dignified and failed completely.
After the hearing, Sophie asked whether she could call him Dad now.
Daniel had said she could call him anything she wanted.
She answered, “Okay, Dad.”
He cried in the courthouse elevator.
That adoption had not been stolen.
It had been fought for carefully.
Painfully.
Legally.
And, most importantly, with years of showing up before any judge signed anything.
Daniel sat Sophie at the kitchen table.
“What do you want?”
“Hot chocolate.”
“Marshmallows?”
“Four.”
“Three.”
“Five.”
“That negotiation makes no sense.”
Sophie almost smiled.
“Four.”