Chương 5
For the first time in a long time, he allowed himself to sit with something unfinished.
Downstairs, he heard Sophie moving around.
The sound was small.
A drawer opening.
A cupboard closing.
A child humming quietly.
He got out of bed.
When he entered the kitchen, Sophie was sitting at the table wearing pajamas and holding a piece of toast.
Stallone was there too.
He had apparently arrived early.
Daniel almost felt irritated for a second.
The feeling came automatically.
His father was always there at the moments when Daniel felt weakest.
Then he realized how unfair that thought was.
Stallone was not creating the weakness.
He was standing near the place where it had already existed.
“Morning,” Daniel said.
Sophie looked up.
“Morning.”
It was a normal greeting.
That made Daniel strangely grateful.
She was not refusing to speak.
She was not pretending nothing happened either.
She was simply being four years old.
Stallone poured coffee into a mug and looked at his son.
“You sleep?”
“A little.”
Stallone nodded.
Neither of them mentioned the previous afternoon.
Not yet.
Some conversations needed space before they could happen honestly.
Sophie pushed her toast around the plate.
“Grandpa says I can pick the music in the car.”
Daniel looked at Stallone.
“You’re taking her?”
“If that’s okay.”
The question surprised him.
Stallone could have assumed.
He could have decided.
Instead, he asked.
Daniel nodded.
“Yeah.”
Sophie smiled.
It was a small thing.
A child smiling because two adults agreed about something simple.
But Daniel felt the weight of it.
Simple things had not always been simple in their family.
After breakfast, Daniel walked outside with Stallone while Sophie searched for her shoes.
The backyard looked different in the morning.
Without guests.
Without voices.
Without everyone trying to appear normal.
The pool was still.
The chairs sat exactly where they had been moved back.
The restroom door was open.
Daniel noticed Stallone looking at it.
“I keep thinking about that door,” Daniel said.
Stallone did not answer immediately.
“I know.”
Daniel leaned against the railing.
“I hate that I didn’t see it.”
“You saw it.”
The answer surprised him.
“What?”
“You saw enough.”
Daniel looked away.
Stallone continued.
“The problem wasn’t that you didn’t notice.”
He paused.
“The problem was that you decided it wasn’t important.”
Daniel swallowed.
That was harder to hear.
Because it was closer to the truth.
“I thought I was teaching her a lesson.”
“What lesson?”
Daniel rubbed his hands together.
“I don’t know.”
The honesty came quietly.
“I guess I thought if I didn’t control things now, everything would become harder later.”
Stallone looked toward the pool.
“When did you start thinking being a father meant controlling everything?”
Daniel did not answer.
Because he knew.
Not the exact day.
But the feeling.
The pressure.
The constant need to prove he was doing better than his own parents.
He had spent so much time trying not to be like Stallone that he had never noticed he had copied a different part of him.
The stubbornness.
The pride.
The belief that admitting a mistake meant losing authority.
“When I was a kid,” Daniel said, “you were always working.”
Stallone looked down.
“I know.”
“I used to think you didn’t care.”
The words were difficult.
Not because they were angry.
Because they were old.
Stallone nodded slowly.
“I probably gave you reasons to think that.”
Daniel looked at him.
He expected an explanation.
A defense.
Something.
Instead, Stallone simply accepted it.
That was new.
“I was trying to make sure you had everything,” Stallone said.
“I know.”
“But I confused providing with being there.”
Daniel looked back toward the house.
Sophie’s voice echoed faintly from inside.
She was singing something with no recognizable melody.
“I’m doing the same thing.”
Stallone did not argue.
That hurt more than comfort would have.
“I don’t want her to grow up thinking she has to earn being protected.”
The sentence came out before Daniel could edit it.
Stallone looked at him.
“That’s a good thing to understand.”
Daniel gave a small laugh.
“After yesterday?”
“Sometimes people understand things after they fail.”
The answer was simple.
Not comforting.
Not cruel.
Just true.
The front door opened.
Sophie ran outside wearing one shoe.
“I can’t find the other one.”
Daniel almost smiled.
“Did you look where you left it?”
She nodded seriously.
“Yes.”
“Where?”
She pointed toward the grass.
They walked over together.
The shoe was near the flower bed.
Sophie stared at it.
“I looked there.”
Daniel raised an eyebrow.
“You did?”
“Yes.”
“Interesting.”
She looked at him.
“What?”
“Because the shoe was there.”
She considered this.
Then shrugged.
“Maybe it moved.”
Stallone laughed quietly.
Daniel laughed too.
It was the first genuine laugh he had had since the previous afternoon.
Small moments like that were easier to accept than forgiveness.
Forgiveness was a large word.
A heavy word.
This was just a shoe.
A child.
A morning.
A chance to do something differently.
The drive to Stallone’s house was quiet at first.
Sophie sat in the back seat choosing songs.
Most of them lasted less than thirty seconds before she changed them.
Daniel sat in the passenger seat.
He noticed his father did not complain.
Years ago, Stallone would have complained.
He would have said she needed to make a decision.
He would have called it patience-building.
Now he simply let a four-year-old control the music.
People changed slowly.
Usually after life forced them to notice themselves.
When they arrived, Sophie ran toward the porch.
Then she stopped.
She turned back.
“Daddy?”
Daniel looked at her.
“Yeah?”
“Are you coming inside?”
The question was innocent.
But Daniel heard everything behind it.
He was not being asked to enter a house.
He was being asked whether he would stay.
“I am.”
Sophie nodded and ran ahead.
Stallone unlocked the door.
Daniel followed.
Inside, the house smelled like coffee and old wood.
May you like
It was not as large as Daniel’s house.
It did not have a perfect backyard.
