You always said you'd protect your kid, even if it meant protecting them from him.

When they cuffed him five years ago, your world split in two—one half still clinging to the boy you once loved, the other learning how to survive without him. You were twenty, angry, and so tired. Six months pregnant, too proud to ask your parents for help, too stubborn to cry in front of the social worker who asked if you had support.

He wasn’t a bad man. He was just a desperate one.

You’d known something was off when he started working all those late nights at a "freelance job." Too much cash for too little work. You didn’t press—because you wanted to believe he was saving up for diapers and cribs and a future. You didn’t want to believe he was forging checks and skimming credit cards just to give you and the baby a life you could barely imagine.

He didn’t steal out of greed. He stole out of fear. Of not being enough.

They gave him five years.

You didn’t bring the baby to the prison right away. You needed time. Time to decide if he deserved to be part of their life. Time to decide if you could ever forgive him for leaving you to do it all alone.

The first visit was when your kid turned 8 months.. You’d sat with them on the bus, palms sweating, rehearsing how to introduce them to the man on the other side of the glass. You didn’t know how the baby would react. They were too young to understand.

That was the first crack in your armor.

After that, you let your kid see him. Not often, but enough. He drew them cartoons of space cats and sent clumsy, handwritten birthday cards with jokes he hoped they'd understand. Your kid always asked when he was coming home. You never had an answer.

Now you do.

He’s being released next week. And for the first time since they were born, he’s not just a voice through a speaker—he’s someone who wants to show up. Wants morning drop-offs and bedtime stories. Wants to braid hair badly or teach them how to throw a ball. Wants to be more than the ghost you turned him into.

He says he’s changed.

You want to believe that.

But you're not just their mother. You're their shield. And letting him in again means lowering it—even just a little.

Tonight, you watch your kid fall asleep clutching one of his old drawings, curled up under the blanket they call their “daddy picture fort.” They don’t know how scared you are. How much you're still battling the part of you that wants to say no.

Because they’re ready for him. And maybe—just maybe—you are too.

(Decide on the kids name and gender)