Chapter 13: The Morning He Stayed
Before sunrise, Jason sat at the kitchen table with his overnight bag by his feet and the flight confirmation open on his phone.
He changed his ticket. The new date bought him several more days in Austin—not a new life, not yet. Then he opened his work email and wrote to his supervisor, asking whether a temporary Austin assignment was possible. He explained that a family emergency had changed his plans and promised to discuss the work details as soon as the office opened.
The message went out. No answer came back.
Jason set the phone down. A minute later, he picked it up again, as if persistence could make a reply appear.
At the school, he waited outside the main entrance at the time they had agreed on. The breakfast sandwich in its paper wrapper had gone lukewarm in his hand. Beside it sat a basic phone, still in its box.
Maya came through the doors with her backpack riding low on one shoulder. She stopped when she saw him. Her gaze moved from the food to the box.
“You stayed,” she said.
“I changed my flight.”
“That’s not the same as staying.”
“No,” he said. “It isn’t.”
He didn’t try to hand her the sandwich. He held out the phone instead.
“You can use it to reach me directly. No one has to pass messages.”
Maya studied the box before taking it. “Does it track me?”
“No. I didn’t set up location sharing.”
She turned it over in her hands, checking the plain plastic case. “I’ll take this.”
Jason nodded. The sandwich remained between them, warm only where his fingers curled around the wrapper.
“I’m not hungry,” she said.
“All right.”
She tucked the phone into her backpack. “So what does staying look like after this week?”
The question landed harder than the one he’d prepared for. Jason glanced at the school’s glass doors, where students drifted past in the bright morning light, then looked back at his daughter.
“I asked my supervisor about a temporary assignment here. I don’t know if they’ll approve it.”
“And if they don’t?”
“I’ll tell you what they say. I won’t pretend I know the answer before I have it.”
Maya’s expression didn’t soften, but she didn’t turn away.
Jason took out his phone. “I wrote down what I can actually do while I’m here. You can tell me what doesn’t work.”
He showed her the screen. A simple schedule: a call at 7:30 each evening, if she wanted one; a message if she didn’t answer, with no repeat calls. Dinner together twice that week, both in public, with Maya choosing the place. He had added a reminder to contact her by Friday with an update from work.
Maya read it all without taking the phone from him.
“You wrote ‘call every night.’ What if I don’t want to talk?”
“Then you don’t have to.”
“What if I say I don’t want to talk for a week?”
“I’ll send one message asking if you’re okay. If you say you need space, I’ll respect it.”
“And after Friday?”
“I don’t know yet.” He kept his voice steady, though the uncertainty made him want to fill the silence with something grander. “If work approves the assignment, we make a schedule around that. If they don’t, we make one around what I can do. I won’t ask you to trust a plan I haven’t made.”
Maya looked past him toward the parking lot. A bus hissed at the curb, lowering itself for a student with a cane.
“You can’t make me responsible for whether you stay,” she said.
“I know.”
“Because if I ask, then you’ll say you stayed for me.”
Jason felt the temptation to protest—to say he would never do that, that she had nothing to fear. But a promise was easy to speak and hard to prove.
“You shouldn’t have to carry my decision,” he said. “I changed the flight because I chose to. The work request is my responsibility too.”
She studied his face as if searching for the hidden price.
Then she said, “I’ll have dinner with you.”
“Wherever you want.”
“Not the diner.”
“Okay.”
“Somewhere public. And I’m not talking about the school forms.”
“Okay.”
“And no questions about Eli.”
Jason nodded. “That’s your call.”
Maya adjusted the backpack strap. The phone box pressed against the worn fabric inside it. “There’s a taco place by the library. We can go there after school.”
“I’ll meet you.”
She started toward the doors, then paused.
“You can keep the sandwich,” she said.
He looked down at it. “I can.”
Maya went inside without taking it. Jason watched her disappear into the stream of students, then checked his phone once more. His supervisor still hadn’t replied. The silence was not a verdict, but it wasn’t an answer either.
He put the sandwich away and went to find coffee.
At the taco place that evening, Maya chose a table near the window and sat facing the entrance. Jason didn’t ask why. He set his phone on the table, screen down, and waited while she studied the menu.
She ordered two tacos and a soda. He ordered what she did, though he wasn’t hungry. The first few minutes passed with the scrape of chairs and the clatter of trays filling the space between them.
“Did you really send cards every year?” Maya asked at last.
“Yes.”
“I read some of them.”
“I know.”
“I didn’t know what to do with them.”
“You don’t have to do anything with them.”
She looked at him sharply. “You always say I don’t have to do things. But you still want me to.”
Jason took the correction without defending himself. “You’re right. I want to read them with you, if you want that. But I can wait.”
Maya turned her soda cup slowly between her palms. “I don’t want to read them all tonight.”
“We don’t have to.”
She unzipped her backpack and brought out the bundle. The envelopes were creased; some were open, others still sealed. She separated several unopened ones from the stack and placed them in front of him.
“Take these,” she said. “Bring them tomorrow.”
Jason looked at the envelopes but didn’t touch them yet. “You want me to keep them overnight?”
“I want to read the rest beside you.” Her voice tightened, then steadied. “Not because I forgive you. I don’t.”
“I understand.”
“You can’t read them first.”
“I won’t.”
Maya watched him for another moment. Then she pushed the cards the last few inches across the table.
Jason gathered them carefully, as if the thin envelopes could tear beneath the weight of everything they had carried. He slid them into the inside pocket of his jacket.
May you like
“Tomorrow,” he said.
Maya lifted her cup. “Tomorrow.”
