Page 90 of No Greater Love
Tasha paced my kitchen like a caged animal, her agitation filling the room.
"She was fucking twenty-eight years old, Nate," she said, stopping mid-pace to face me. "Twenty-eight. She was older than I am right now."
I kept folding, kept packing, because if I stopped moving, I might fall apart entirely. "Tasha?—"
"No, you listen to me. She wasn't some scared sixteen-year-old who got pregnant in high school. She wasn't eighteen and overwhelmed. She was a fully grown adult woman who looked at her three-month-old baby and decided it was too hard."
My hands stilled on the backpack zipper. "She was struggling. People make mistakes when they're drowning?—"
"Bullshit." The word came out sharp enough to cut glass. "You don't get to abandon your baby just because keeping your head above water got difficult. You know what you do when you're drowning? You learn to swim. You ask for help. You don't hand your infant to someone else and disappear for eleven years."
I looked up at her, seeing the fierce protectiveness in her eyes, the way she was ready to go to war for us. "What if she really has changed? What if?—"
"Then she can prove it over months and years of consistent effort, not one supervised coffee date." Tasha moved closer. “Nate, I need you to hear this. I see what she's doing. The therapy resume, the perfect house in the suburbs, the 'I'll step back if it doesn't work' promise she couldn't define when I pushed her on it. This isn't about Paige. This is about Sarah needing something from Paige."
"You think I don't see it?" My voice was quiet, strained. "You think I want to put Paige through this?"
"Then why are we doing it?"
"Because if I say no, she goes to court claiming I'm alienating Paige. And maybe she wins, maybe she doesn't, but either way, my daughter gets dragged through a custody battle that could have been avoided." I zipped the backpack with more force than necessary. "At least this way, I control the terms."
"Fine," she said. "But I'll be watching everything. Every word, every gesture, every manipulation. And when she shows her true colors- and shewill- I want you to remember this conversation."
I stood, slinging Paige's backpack over my shoulder. "I hope you're wrong."
"I hope I am too," she said softly. "But I'm not."
____________________________________________________________
The coffee shop on Elm Street had been Sarah's suggestion, and I'd agreed without thinking it through. Now, watching Paige's face as we approached the entrance, I wondered if we should have askedherwhereshewanted to meet.
"Dad," Paige said quietly, "my stomach feels funny."
"Nervous?" I asked, crouching down to her level.
She nodded, clutching her axolotl tighter. "What if she doesn't like me?"
The question gutted me. After everything—the abandonment, the years of silence, the legal papers—my daughter was worried about being likable enough for the woman who'd walked away from her.
"Hey," I said, touching her chin gently. "That's not how this works, okay? She's the one who asked to meet you. And if she doesn't appreciate how amazing you are, that's her problem, not yours."
Tasha knelt beside me, her voice fierce but gentle. "You are perfect exactly as you are, kiddo. Anyone who doesn't see that isn't worth worrying about."
Paige nodded, but I could see the tension in her small shoulders. We were asking an eleven-year-old to navigate an emotional minefield that fully grown adults struggled with.
Inside the coffee shop, Sarah was already waiting at a corner table, and my first thought was that she looked like she was playing a role. The outfit was calculated—designer jeans that, once again, probably cost more than my weekly grocery budget, but casual enough to seem approachable. A soft sweater in what I recognized as Paige's favorite color. Even her hair looked professionally styled to appear effortlessly maternal.
She stood when she saw us, her smile bright but somehow artificial. "Hi, Paige. Wow... you look so much like your dad."
Paige blinked, but said nothing. I noticed Sarah didn't crouch to meet Paige at eye level, didn't wait for any cue from my daughter about what kind of interaction she was comfortable with. She just dove in.
"I'm so excited to finally meet you," Sarah continued, her voice light and enthusiastic. "I brought you something."
She reached into an expensive-looking bag and pulled out what had to be a hundred-dollar art set, replete with professional colored pencils, sketchbooks- the works. The kind of gift that screamed money but showed absolutely no knowledge of what Paige actually enjoyed.
"Thank you," Paige said politely, but she didn't reach for it. Sarah's smile flickered for just a moment, her fingers tightening imperceptibly around her water glass.
We settled at the table, Paige between Tasha and me, Sarah across from us. I watched Tasha cataloging every detail, her expression carefully neutral but her eyes sharp.
