POV Mira
The quiet hum of the machines felt deafening once the door clicked shut behind the doctor. Leo Stern rattled in my head like a loose screw, louder than the monitors, louder than my own pulse.
“You knew,” I said. My voice wasn’t loud, but it had an edge I barely recognized.
Leo’s brows pulled together. “Mira—”
“No.” My breath came short and quick. “Don’t ‘Mira’ me.” I took one step toward him, fists tight at my sides. “You knew my father was sick. You knew, and you didn’t tell me.”
His jaw clenched. “Your father asked me not to.”
A laugh tore out of me, thin and mean. “Oh, right, now you follow instructions. The man who rewrites rules for sport suddenly cares about boundaries?”
“It wasn’t my place,” he said, steady as glass.
“It wasn’t your—” My voice spiked, and a nurse at the station glanced over the partition. I lowered it, but the words still shook. “He’s my father. You had no right to keep this from me.”
“He didn’t want you to worry.”
I stared at him. “I’m worried anyway. And furious. You had no problem interfering with my life when it suited you—my job, my time, my body. But this is where you draw the line?”
Something flickered in his eyes. “He wanted dignity. He asked me to respect that.”
“And my dignity?” I asked, throat aching. “Where was that consideration?”
He took a breath. “I was protecting you.”
“From the truth?” I shook my head. The room tilted for a second, steadied. “Get out, Leo.”
“Mira—”
“I can’t look at you right now.” The heat behind my eyes burned. I forced the words out anyway. “Leave.”
For a heartbeat I thought he’d argue, push, fill the air with that calm, immovable logic of his. He didn’t. His gaze held mine—dark, unreadable—then he turned and walked out, the door closing soft as a secret.
I sank into the chair beside my father’s bed. He looked smaller against the white sheets, the familiar broadness of his shoulders somehow lost under a hospital gown. A moment later his eyelids fluttered.
“Mira?” he whispered.
“I’m here.” I worked a smile onto my face, brittle as spun sugar.
He blinked, like he was reaching for a memory just out of frame. “Why are you crying?”
The laugh I made was half-sob. “Why didn’t you tell me?” The question came out thin and raw.
He considered me, then gave that small, stubborn smile I know too well. “I didn’t want to bother you, my child.”
“Bother me?” Tears gathered again, hot and humiliating. “You’re my father. There’s no such thing.”
He lifted his hand—cooler than I remembered—and I folded mine around it. His fingers squeezed, papery and sure. “You have your life. I won’t make it heavier.”
“You don’t get to make that choice for me,” I said, but it came out softer, pleading instead of angry.
His eyes warmed. “Look at you, scolding me.” A beat. “I’m fine now. Go home. Shower. Eat. Come back in the morning. Everything will be good with me.”
“Good” felt like a word trying to carry too much weight, but he was using that voice—the one that told me the monsters were not real and also somehow scared them away. I nodded. “Okay. First thing.”
I kissed his temple and stood. As I reached for the door, he said, “Mira?”
“Yeah?”
“I’m proud of you.”
The breath I’d been holding escaped. “I know,” I lied, and slipped into the hall.
The elevator ride stretched like a held note. In the lobby, people moved in straight lines, their lives neatly boxed into clipboards and badge lanyards. Mine felt like a deck of cards someone had thrown into the air.
Outside, the evening air bit my cheeks. The car Leo had arranged waited at the curb, driver already holding the door. I slid in and gave him my address. He nodded, silent, and drove.
The city blurred past—traffic like angry veins, streetlights blooming and fading, a couple arguing under a bus shelter, a kid chasing a runaway balloon. I pressed my forehead to the glass and tried to breathe in counts of four the way my mother taught me once when I was twelve and terrified of thunderstorms.
By the time the car pulled up to my house, the count wasn’t working. My hands shook on the handle anyway. I pushed the door open.
And froze.
Victor stood in the foyer, suit jacket unbuttoned, sleeves pushed to his forearms. In one hand, he held a bouquet that looked like it had been chosen by someone who picked color over rules—wild peonies, larkspur, stray eucalyptus. The other hand held a brown paper bag, grease blooming dark at the corners.
“Mira,” he said, voice low.
Whatever composure I had left cracked down the middle. I stepped into him, arms wrapping around his waist. The flowers crushed between us with a soft, apologetic sigh. He hugged me back immediately, firm and steady, his cheek coming to rest on the crown of my head.
“I brought food,” he said into my hair. “And the stupid flowers. Sorry, I didn’t know what to do with my hands.”
A laugh stuttered out of me, then turned to a sob. He didn’t flinch. He just pressed closer, breathing with me until mine found a rhythm that wasn’t all panic.
“Come on,” he murmured, guiding me toward the kitchen. “Sit. I’ll plate it.”
I sat because he asked me to, because I didn’t trust my legs to keep the floor where it belonged. He moved like he always does—efficient, quiet, eyes cataloging everything. He set a bowl in front of me: chicken soup, steam curling like a small mercy. A buttered roll. The bouquet went into a chipped glass pitcher because the vase was somewhere I couldn’t name.
“Taste,” he said.
I lifted the spoon. The broth was hot and clear and exactly right. The first swallow made my throat hurt less. “It’s good.”
“From that place you like,” he said, pulling out the chair beside me but not sitting until I nodded. “I bribed the chef. Don’t ask.”
“You bribed him?”
He shrugged. “He was very persuadable.”
Silence settled between us, not awkward—just full. After a minute, he reached across the table and set his hand over mine. “I heard,” he said. “I’m sorry.”
“Me too.” My eyes burned again. “They said Alzheimer’s. Early. He’s… he’s still him, but pieces are slipping.”
Victor’s jaw tightened. “We’ll catch the pieces,” he said, so simply it made my chest ache.
I swallowed. “Leo knew. He paid for the treatment. He didn’t tell me.”
Victor’s gaze flicked, a small hardening I wouldn’t have noticed last month. “He should have told you,” he said, no defense offered. “But your father asked him.”
“I know.” I looked down at our hands. “I still hate it.”
“Both can be true.”
I nodded. Another breath. Another spoonful. The clock hummed. Somewhere upstairs, a pipe ticked as it cooled.
He stood, circled the table, and held out his hand. “Come on.”
“Where?”
“Upstairs. You need to sleep. I’ll sit in the chair, I won’t touch you unless you ask. Scout’s honor.”
“You weren’t a Scout,” I said, voice catching on a smile.
“No,” he agreed. “But I can lie convincingly.”
I let him pull me up. On the stairs, his hand stayed at the small of my back, not pushing, just there. In my room, I changed into a soft T-shirt while he pretended to be very interested in the bookshelf. When I crawled under the covers, he switched off the lamp and settled into the chair by the window, the bouquet a dark silhouette on the dresser.
“Victor?” I said into the dim.
“Mm?”
“Thank you.”
He exhaled, a quiet sound. “Anytime.”
The house settled around us. My eyes slid shut, opened again, shut. He didn’t speak. He didn’t move. He was simply there, a steady shape against the flicker of headlights crossing the wall.
For the first time all day, I felt like I was somewhere safe. Somewhere that wasn’t sterile or cold or full of secrets. Somewhere that felt like home.