Chapter 6 - What Helen Told Me After Seven
At six thirty we walked back to Elmwood. Ella had ice cream on her cheek despite three napkins. I bought her a small water and carried her backpack while she carried the bunny and the drawing from school, now rolled carefully. She held my hand the whole way without being asked.
Helen was waiting in the doorway of 3B, arms crossed but not angry. Worried.
"We had a good day," I said, before she could ask. "School and the diner and the park."
"Thank you," Helen said. Her eyes went to Ella, then back to me. "Ella, honey, go wash your face and hands and put your drawing on the table."
Ella did, reluctant, looking back at me as she disappeared down the hall. When the bathroom door clicked, Helen stepped out into the hall and pulled the apartment door halfway closed behind her.
"Mr. Reyes," she said in a low voice. "I need to say this kindly. She liked you very much today. Too much, maybe."
"I know," I said. "I tried to keep to the coupon."
"She asked me this morning if you were her real daddy now," Helen said. Her hands tightened. "I told her no, that you were a very nice man who said yes for one day. But she is four. She doesn't understand borrowed."
I nodded. The hallway felt too warm.
"Her father—" Helen stopped. "My daughter, Maris, she passed last winter. Pneumonia after a long time being sick. Her husband, Michael, Ella's dad, died two years before that. Car accident outside Dayton. Did you know him?"
The name hit like a door closing. Michael. I swallowed.
"I did," I said. My voice was thin. "Michael Cruz. We were roommates after college. For two years."
Helen's eyes widened and then narrowed, not with surprise but with confirmation, as if she had suspected.
"She picked you because you looked like the pictures," Helen said quietly. "She has one photo of him in a black shirt. Dark hair. She keeps it under her pillow with the bunny. When she saw you at the gala— Helen runs the coat check there— she told me, that one could be my daddy."
I leaned against the wall. The coupon in my pocket felt heavy. So it wasn't random. It was never random.
"I didn't stay close," I said. The confession came out raw. "After Michael died, I went to the funeral and then I— I didn't call. I didn't help Maris. I told myself it wasn't my place."
Helen watched me a long time. The bathroom door was still closed. Water running.
"She doesn't need a borrowed daddy who disappears again," Helen said, not unkindly but firmly. "That would be worse than never saying yes. If you are going to be around, you have to be around. Not for shows. For sick days and school forms. Are you someone who can do that?"
I didn't answer right away. The question deserved a pause.
"I don't know yet," I said honestly. "But I know I don't want to be the man who leaves again. Today was the first day in two years I did something that felt right about Michael."
She studied my face, my stubble, my cheap jeans, my hands that still had syrup under a nail from cutting pancakes. Then she nodded once.
Ella came back, face clean, bunny repositioned. "Is it seven yet?"
Helen checked her phone. "Almost."
Ella came to me and hugged my legs hard. "Thank you for borrowing, Daniel."
I knelt. "Thank you for asking me, Ella."
She let go and then, after a serious thought, held the bunny out. "He can stay with you. So you don't forget. And you can bring him next time."
I took the cream bunny carefully, with both hands. "I'll take good care of him."
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Helen put a hand on Ella's head. "Time to say goodnight to Daniel."
I stood with the bunny in my arm, exactly how she had held it, and walked down the fourteen steps counting them silently, and out to my car where I sat for a long time before I could drive.
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