Sophie coughed against Eleanor’s shoulder.
That sound snapped me back into motion.
Whatever this was, my daughter was sick.
“Inside,” I said to Eleanor.
She shook her head.
“I’m not going anywhere with them.”
“Not with them.
Upstairs.
Your apartment.
Sophie needs medicine and dry clothes.
I’ll stay in the hall if you want.”
She studied me for several seconds.
Then she looked at the men.
“They don’t come up.”
“They won’t.”
I turned to the tall contractor.
“Do not leave.”
He nodded.
Eleanor carried Sophie upstairs.
I followed two steps behind.
Her apartment was small but immaculate.
Children’s drawings covered one section of the refrigerator.
A plastic cup sat beside the sink.
Tiny socks were drying over a radiator.
There was a stack of unopened bills beneath a ceramic bowl on the counter.
I had lived in houses with rooms larger than the entire apartment.
Nothing had ever made me feel smaller.
Eleanor placed Sophie on the couch, measured the first dose of antibiotic, and coaxed her to swallow it.
I stood near the door, soaked through, afraid that even breathing too loudly might make Eleanor ask me to leave.
Sophie looked at me over the rim of her cup.
“Daddy?”
Eleanor’s hand stopped.
I couldn’t speak for a moment.
“Yeah, sweetheart.”
The word came out broken.
She seemed satisfied by that and leaned against her mother.
I looked at Eleanor.
“How did she know?”
“I don’t know.”
“You never showed her a picture?”
“No.”
“Never told her what I looked like?”
Eleanor’s eyes filled.
“I told her her father had gray eyes.
That’s all.”
Sophie was already drifting toward sleep.
I wanted to kneel beside her.
I didn’t.
I had just learned I was her father.
That did not mean I had earned the right to invade the space Eleanor had spent nearly three years keeping safe.
So I stayed by the door.
“Show me the letters.”
Eleanor looked at me.
“What?”
“The letters you sent.
Anything you kept.
