"Yes, baby," he said.
Mia thought about that with great seriousness, and then held out her rabbit. "You can hold him," she said, "for a little while."
It was the smallest gesture. It nearly broke him completely.
But the story wasn't finished.
Three weeks after that afternoon, a lawyer called Marcus's office about a sealed letter that had been sitting in a file for fourteen months, since the week before Elena died. Elena had written it during one of her last clear days, when the illness briefly loosened its grip and gave her herself back. She'd sealed it and left one instruction: deliver it to Marcus only when the time felt right, not while the grief was still raw. Later.
The letter arrived on a Friday morning. Marcus sat in his study and opened it, and Elena's small, familiar handwriting filled the page.
You are a wonderful father, she'd written. Watch her face when you walk into a room. That's how you'll always know.
She wrote about the darkest nights of her illness, when fear had a grip on her she couldn't explain, and how every single time, tiny Mia would find her and press one small hand against her cheek. Not a word, just her hand, as if to say, I see you, and you're going to be okay.
She always finds the person in the room who needs her most, Elena had written. Trust her instincts. They're better than ours.