Chapter 1
The duffel hit the concrete before I did. Camouflage nylon against light gray siding, dead weight after nine months of being packed and repacked and dragged through places that weren't home. The porch light was on. Too warm, too yellow against the November dark, spilling out from an open doorway onto the sidewalk where I knelt because standing felt like I'd blow the whole thing over.
That was the contradiction. Light on meant someone was home. Open door meant someone had been waiting. But the air coming out of that doorway was cold, and the house behind it made no sound at all. No TV. No footsteps. And Lauren's car wasn't in the driveway. The house was lit up like a welcome and empty like no one had remembered to turn it off.
My name is Daniel Reyes. I was thirty-two and kneeling in my own doorway like a stranger asking to be let in.
It was just past nine at night on a Tuesday in late November. I'd texted Lauren from the gas station off Route 17 that I was twenty minutes out. No answer. I told myself that was reception, or she was putting Sophie down, or she didn't want to answer and cry where Sophie could hear. I left the duffel by the exterior wall where the siding met the wooden doorframe because my hands needed to be empty. The interior door was cracked two inches. The storm door propped open with that little metal arm that always stuck. Cold air cut straight out of the hall and hit my face.
Then she appeared. Bare feet on the light-colored blanket spread across the floor just inside the threshold. White pajamas with the little purple cuffs at her wrists and ankles I'd only seen in pictures Lauren sent in August, hair lighter and longer than I remembered, wavy and mussed from sleep. She didn't run. She walked, slow, natural child movement, eyes fixed on my uniform like she was checking it against something she'd been told. The porch light caught the pattern on the blanket under her feet, caught the dust on my boots.
She stopped a foot away. Looked at my face. I didn't move. I kept my hands on my knees so I wouldn't reach too fast. My breathing sounded loud. I could hear the small catch in it I couldn't control.
She said, "Daddy?"
I answered before my throat closed up.
"I'm home, sweetheart."
She reached then. Both arms around my neck and shoulders, small hands gripping the collar of my uniform. I got both hands around her torso, under her arms, and held her. I closed my eyes because I didn't want her to see them fill. Her pajamas were soft cotton against my sleeves. She smelled like laundry detergent and warm kid. I started to lift and she let me, bare feet leaving that blanket without a sound.
The weight of her was real and not real at the same time. Three going on four. I had missed the exact day she learned to wrap her legs around someone. She did it now, legs around my torso, arms staying locked around my neck, chest to chest so tight I could feel her breathe against my jacket. Her feet were cold where they pressed against my side. My eyes stayed closed. I held her tighter because letting go even an inch felt like she might decide I wasn't solid.
She tucked her mouth near my ear. Her voice was small and certain.
"I waited for you."
May you like
I didn't answer. I couldn't without breaking. I held her and rose half an inch, not standing, still kneeling, still in the doorway, and the camera of my own mind held there too tight to see anything else except her hair against my cheek and the cold hall air on my back and the fact that the blanket was now empty behind her and the duffel was still on the ground by the wall exactly where I'd left it. I listened for Lauren. For any other movement inside. The house stayed silent. The light stayed on. The door stayed open and we hadn't crossed it.
I held Sophie off the floor and didn't go in.
