The warm weight of her against his chest unlocked something old and buried and impossibly tender. He had imagined children with Beatrice often enough: drowsy little bodies, bedtime routines, the casual intimacy of fatherhood. He had imagined it so vividly that losing that future had felt like a second widowhood.
And now a child not his by blood, not his by law, not his by any ordinary plan, had chosen his arms as if they were safety.
“Okay,” he whispered into June’s hair, though he wasn’t sure whether he was speaking to her or himself. “Okay.”
That night he pushed the twin beds in the guest room together so the girls could sleep side by side. Joy climbed in and immediately reached for June’s hand. Even in sleep, they held on to each other.
At the doorway, Mason turned off the lamp.
“Good night,” he murmured.
“Night, mister,” June mumbled without opening her eyes.
The word stung. Of course it did. He was a stranger. A temporary harbor. Nothing more.
Still, as he stood in the hallway, listening to their breathing in the dark, he felt something inside him shift—not healed, not even close, but disturbed in a necessary way, like earth being turned before planting.
By Saturday morning they were calling him Mace.
Not because he had asked them to. Because June had shortened it while trying to say his name through a mouthful of toast, and Joy had accepted the revision as final.
The cabin changed character with astonishing speed.
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