Adison’s POV
Jake leaves for Texas on a Tuesday morning, and I pretend the apartment doesn't feel emptier without him.
The goodbye happens at the door like we're civilized people who've done this before, who know how to be apart without it feeling like an amputation. He kisses me. Kisses Elijah's forehead. Promises to call when he lands. And then he's gone, and the penthouse stretches around me like a space designed for someone who has fewer holes in her chest.
The plan we built together is sound. Two weeks in Texas to assess the ranch's readiness for the cowboy camp vision. Then back to Manhattan. Then a rhythm we'll figure out as we go—him splitting time between worlds, me holding the Manhattan fort, both of us refusing to pretend that love requires geographical surrender.
I trust the architecture.
What I don't trust is my own ability to hold everything alone while he's gone.
Elijah is six months old now. Laughing at shadows. Reaching for things he can't quite grasp. Starting to recognize faces with the particular delight of someone discovering the world holds wonders he hasn't cataloged yet. Every day he becomes more himself, more present, more demanding of the attention I'm supposed to split between him and an empire that doesn't care about feeding schedules.
Mothering him solo while running Ward Enterprises feels like a performance I'm not sure I can sustain. Like juggling knives while someone keeps adding more, insisting I smile through the increasing likelihood of blood.
The first day passes in a blur.
Nannies rotate through shifts while I rotate through meetings, and somewhere in between I'm supposed to be present for both—the mother who doesn't outsource love, the CEO who doesn't let personal life compromise professional excellence.
The feeding schedule refuses to align with corporate demands. Elijah wants me at eleven when I'm presenting quarterly projections. The board wants answers at two when he's finally napping and I'm supposed to be napping too, because sleep deprivation is a form of torture and no one warns you that motherhood is just torture you chose.
By evening, exhaustion has settled into my bones like something permanent.
I'm holding Elijah in the nursery, rocking him through the bedtime routine we've finally established, when my phone lights up with Jake's face. I answer one-handed, propping the screen against the changing table so he can see us both.
"Hey." His voice carries distance and warmth in equal measure. "How's my family?"
"Surviving." I shift Elijah to my other hip, letting him see the screen. "Say hi to Daddy."
Elijah responds with a babble that might be recognition or might be gas. Either way, Jake's whole face transforms—softening into that particular tenderness fatherhood has unlocked in him, the version of himself he didn't know existed until a six-pound human demanded it into being.
"God, I miss you both." The words come out rough. "It's been twelve hours and I miss you like it's been months."
"Tell me about the ranch." I settle into the rocking chair, Elijah growing heavy against my chest as sleep starts claiming him. "Distract me from the fact that I haven't slept more than three consecutive hours in six months."
Jake's laugh is quiet, careful not to disturb the baby through the phone speaker. Behind him, Texas sunset bleeds orange and pink across a sky that looks bigger than anything Manhattan offers.
"It feels like breathing." He turns the camera to show me the view—endless land, the barn I've seen in photos, the particular quality of light that only exists in places where buildings haven't stolen the horizon. "After months of holding my breath, I'm finally breathing again."
The words should sting. They don't—or maybe they do, but the sting is complicated. Wrapped in understanding I've earned through watching him suffocate in my city, pretending concrete could ever feel like home.
"The land remembers me." He turns the camera back to his face, and I see something there I haven't seen in months. Peace. Actual, genuine peace. "Even when I forget myself, this place holds who I am. Does that make sense?"
"It makes perfect sense."
"I walked the property all afternoon." His enthusiasm builds, the words coming faster. "Mapping where the children's cabins could go—there's a flat stretch near the east pasture that would be perfect. And the teaching arena could sit where the old equipment shed used to be. We'd have to tear it down, but the foundation's solid."
"What about housing for the scholarship kids?"
"The bunkhouse needs work, but the bones are good. Twenty beds if we renovate properly. Maybe more if we add a wing." He's gesturing now, painting pictures I can almost see through the phone screen.
"They'd sleep there, eat in the main house kitchen—Maria's already talking about meal plans, and she hasn't even agreed to come back yet—and learn in the arena during the day. Real work. Real responsibility. The kind of transformation I've watched happen in small doses in New Jersey, but bigger. Permanent."
His enthusiasm is contagious despite the distance. I find myself smiling at his plans even as I ache for his presence, even as Elijah's weight against my chest reminds me of everything I'm holding alone.
"Show me Elijah's new trick," Jake says, and the pivot catches me off guard.
"How do you know about that?"
"Maria texted me videos. But I want to see it live."
I shift Elijah so Jake can see him properly, then guide his tiny hands toward his feet. He's been obsessed with them for days—the discovery that his body has these appendages he can grab, can control, can put in his mouth if no one stops him.
"Come on, baby." I encourage softly. "Show Daddy what you learned."
Elijah's face scrunches with concentration. His hands reach. And then he's got his toes, gripping them with determined focus, and the sound Jake makes through the phone is something between laughter and tears.
"That's my boy." His voice cracks slightly. "That's my perfect, brilliant boy."
"He's been practicing all day." I watch our son hold his own feet like he's conquered something magnificent. "I think he's planning to walk by next week, the way he's going."
"Don't let him." Jake's smile is visible even through the phone screen's limitations. "Don't let him grow up while I'm gone."
"I'll do my best." The promise feels inadequate and necessary in equal measure.
We talk until Elijah falls asleep, until the Texas sunset fades to darkness behind Jake's face, until exhaustion makes my words slur and he tells me to rest with the particular authority of someone who loves me enough to give orders.
After we hang up, I sit in the nursery holding our sleeping son and tell myself this is sustainable.
This is what partnership looks like when two people refuse to shrink for each other.
He gets Texas. I get Manhattan. And somewhere in between, we build a family that honors both.
The exhaustion doesn't disappear. The loneliness doesn't either.
But the architecture holds.
For now, that's enough.