The Apartment Above the Bakery
Chapter 07 - The Apartment Above the Bakery
Ethan arrived at the apartment above the bakery two mornings later with no driver, no lawyer, and no camera crew.
Lily saw him from the window before he knocked. He stood under the striped awning with rain on his shoulders, holding a paper bag from the bakery downstairs. He looked absurdly out of place among delivery bikes and chipped brick, but he also looked terrified, which made him more human than any suit ever had.
Noah was on the floor building a crooked tower from wooden blocks.
“Mommy?” he asked when the knock came.
Lily wiped her hands on a dish towel. “Stay here.”
She opened the door only as far as the chain allowed.
Ethan’s eyes found her face first, then stopped himself from looking inside. She appreciated that. It was the first respectful thing he had done since the night everything shattered.
“I brought muffins,” he said.
Lily stared at him.
He swallowed. “That sounded less stupid in the bakery.”
For one dangerous second, she almost smiled.
Then Noah’s voice floated from behind her. “Is it Miss Grace?”
Ethan’s face changed.
Every bit of anger Lily had stored for him weakened under the sight of a father hearing his child’s voice for the first time.
She closed her eyes.
“Ethan,” she whispered, “if I let you in, you do not rush him. You do not touch him unless he wants it. You do not promise anything you cannot survive keeping.”
“I swear.”
“You swore before.”
He accepted that like a blade he deserved. “Then I swear better now.”
Lily removed the chain.
Noah looked up from his blocks as Ethan entered. He was small for three, with dark curls, serious eyes, and a stubborn mouth Lily recognized from both sides of his bloodline. Ethan stopped near the door, one hand gripping the paper bag.
Noah studied him.
“Are you the man from the picture?”
Lily froze.
Ethan looked at her.
Noah toddled to the shelf and pulled down a folded photograph Lily had hidden behind a cookbook but apparently not well enough. It showed Ethan and Lily outside the courthouse, wind in Lily’s hair, Ethan’s grin wide and foolishly happy.
“That man,” Noah said.
Ethan crouched slowly, keeping space between them. “Yes. I’m Ethan.”
Noah considered this. “Mommy cries when she thinks I’m sleeping.”
Lily turned away.
Ethan’s throat worked. “I’m sorry.”
Noah frowned. “Did you make her cry?”
Lily stepped in. “Noah—”
“Yes,” Ethan said.
The honesty startled her.
Ethan set the muffins down and remained crouched. “I didn’t know how much. But yes. I made her cry, and I’m here to make it right if she lets me try.”
Noah walked closer with the photograph in one hand and a block in the other.
“You can fix towers,” he said. “But only if you don’t knock them again.”
Ethan looked at the crooked tower on the rug.
Then he looked at Lily.
May you like
“I’ll start with the bottom block,” he said.
And Lily hated that part of her still believed he might.
