He listened when Sofia was angry.
One evening, she finally told him, “You should have come back before I needed rescuing.”
Alexander nodded.
“I should have.”
There was no excuse after that.
Only time, consistency and the uncomfortable work of becoming her father again.
Almost a year after the wedding, Sofia returned to the Uptown condo.
The locks had been changed.
The walls had been repainted, and every document connected to the property had been reviewed.
I carried a box of dishes.
Alexander carried nothing until Sofia handed him a lamp.
He stopped at the doorway.
“May I come in?”
Sofia looked around the home Carmen had tried to steal—the windows, the quiet kitchen, the keys resting in her own palm.
Then she looked at the father who had once disappeared and had finally learned that protection did not mean control.
“Come in,” she said.
Alexander stepped across the threshold.
Sofia closed the door behind him, turned the lock herself and did not flinch.
