Robert and Malik are civil now. Not close. Robert holds Amara sometimes, carefully, like he’s not sure he’s earned the right, and honestly, he hasn’t — not yet. Trust isn’t something you get back on your own timeline. It comes back on the timeline of the people you hurt, if it comes back at all.
I told him that once, plainly, standing in that kitchen. “You don’t get to decide when this is over, Robert. She does.” I nodded toward the bassinet. “And so does he.”
Ruth comes by every other Sunday now. We sit on the porch and pass Amara back and forth between us, two grandmothers who never expected to raise this baby together, doing it anyway, because that’s what love does when it’s got nowhere else to go but forward.
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