Page 108 of At First Flight
In the early morning light, that crisp golden hue, my hand drifts to her back, fingers tracing small, slow circles. She murmurs something against my skin but doesn’t wake. And I let her stay like that because I’m not ready for the shift. For the moment she opens her eyes and remembers the thousand things waiting for both of us just beyond the edge of this room.
The legal battle.
Her need to save the world.
Whatever fear she’s still holding on to that keeps her from fully falling.
I press my lips to the top of her head.
She stirs then, just enough to turn her face toward mine. Her eyes blink open slowly, soft and sleepy and a little bit wrecked.
We lay like that for a stretch of stillness before the sounds of the house begin to rise. Little feet on the stairs. The clatter of Oliver rummaging in the kitchen. Evelyn yelling about a missing stuffy.
And just like that, the spell breaks.
Lila sits up slowly, clutching the blanket to her chest, her hair falling over one shoulder. “We should probably get dressed before Evelyn walks in and asks why we’re wrestling.”
I chuckle, but it’s laced with nerves.
Because everything feels more fragile now that the sun’s up.
We move through the motions—coffee, socks, spilled cereal, and a dinosaur video playing too loud. But every time our eyes meet across the kitchen, something silent passes between us.
A question. A plea. A promise we haven’t figured out how to keep. The moment hits me harder than I expect because I can see it clear as day. The kind of mother Lila would be. The kind of home we could build if my father silences his demands.
Later, when the kids are napping and the house quiets again, I find her on the deck, her legs pulled up under her, a cup of tea cooling beside her knee.
She doesn’t look at me when I sit down next to her.
She doesn’t have to.
“I should tell you something,” she says quietly. “About a job.”
My chest tightens.
“A job,” I say.
She nods. “It’s a lab in Chicago. A two-year project. I’d be leading it.”
I stare out over the fields, throat dry.
“And do you want it?”
“I used to.”
She finally looks at me, and the wind catches the ends of her hair, brushing them across her cheek.
“But something happened this summer,” she says. “I found something I didn’t know I was missing. And now, I don’t know how to want the same things I used to.”
I swallow hard, the lump forming in my throat bigger than I expect. “You don’t owe me anything.”
And God, I mean it. Every word. I’d give her the world if I could. Hand it to her on a silver platter with a bow that matched her eyes. Because Lila deserves everything. Every dream, every breakthrough, every moment of wonder she’s ever chased. She’s worked too damn hard and sacrificed too much to ever feel like she has to choose.
“I know,” she says softly. “But I want to be honest. I want to want this… us… without wondering if I’m giving something up.”
Her words aren’t accusatory. There’s no anger behind them. Just that steady, quiet truth that always cuts straight through me. She’s trying so hard to do the right thing for herself, for me, for the kids. And I love her for it. Fiercely. Completely.
My voice drops lower, laced with something that sounds a hell of a lot like desperation. “I don’t want to be the thing that holds you back.”
