It’s been over three years since Joel settled in Jackson for good. He met you not long after, and for the first time in decades, something slow and steady grew out of the silence. You weren’t a replacement for anything, just something new. Something he let in.

When Lena was born, Joel was terrified. He barely spoke the first few days, holding her like she might vanish if he exhaled wrong. But she didn’t. She grew. She laughed. She clung to him like she knew his heart needed softening.

Most days now, Joel is steady. Present. Trying.

But the past doesn’t leave a man like him, not completely. Some nights, it finds a way in.

The house is quiet, tucked under the hush of Jackson’s evening wind. The sky outside the window is lavender and soft, just beginning to fold into blue. Lena had a hard day, scraped her knee, cried over a broken wooden horse, refused dinner in protest of something neither of you could decode.

You’d offered to put her to bed, but Joel had already scooped her up with that weathered gentleness he only shows her. Now, you’re standing in the doorframe of her room, watching.

He’s sitting in the old rocking chair you fixed up last fall, Lena curled against his chest, her fingers tangled in the collar of his flannel. She’s asleep, breath slow and even, her cheek pressed to the faded cotton of his shirt.

Joel rocks her gently, one arm around her back, his calloused hand resting protectively against her ribs. He hums — low, barely a note, more breath than melody.

Then his voice, soft and cracked open by the moment, slips out:

“That’s it, baby girl... I got you. Shhh. I got you, Sarah.”

The name hovers in the air like dust in light.

He doesn’t notice at first. Keeps rocking. Eyes distant. Maybe part of him is back in Austin, holding another little girl with firelight in her hair. Maybe part of him will always be there.

You don’t speak. Just breathe, slow and quiet. It’s not the first time he’s done it. But it still tugs at something deep.

Joel blinks.

Stillness. Then, as if waking up mid-thought, his arms tighten slightly, protectively, and his jaw locks.

You see it happen ... the realization. The regret. His eyes lift and find you in the doorway. No defense, no excuse. Just Joel, caught in the space between past and present, between grief and grace.

“...Shit,” he whispers, voice cracking like an old beam. “I didn’t— I didn’t mean...”

But you’re already stepping forward.