Page 54 of Daddy's Little Christmas

I hadn’t had a Christmas like this. Not ever. Not with Nate’s polished parties and careful smiles. Not even in the years before, when wanting had always felt like something to apologize for.

I swallowed hard and finally looked back toward Graeme.

He was watching me—not smiling, not prompting. Just there. Waiting to see what it did to me.

And what it did was everything.

“This—” I choked, fingers hovering over the pacifier without quite touching it. “You… did this?”

My voice didn’t sound like mine. It sounded younger. Thinner. Like it had slipped sideways in time without asking my permission.

Behind me, Graeme’s footsteps were slow, careful, like he was moving through something fragile.

“For you,” he said quietly.

The words landed in a place I’d spent years pretending didn’t exist.

“For me,” I echoed, because my brain apparently needed to hear it again.

“For you, sweetheart,” he said. “You told me you threw your things away after Mrs. Davis. That nobody ever replaced them. I can’t fix that.” He paused, breath steady. “But while you’re here… I wanted you to have a space where nothing about you is wrong.”

A hot tear spilled before I could stop it.

I swiped at it, irritated with myself, but another followed, blurring the soft edges of the basket.

“Nobody’s ever…” I started, then stopped, teeth catching my lower lip.

Except Mrs. Davis.

Except her.

“I thought…” I tried again. “I thought that part of my life was over. That maybe it was safer to leave it behind.”

“Did it feel safer?” Graeme asked gently.

I looked down at the basket. At the curve of the bottle. The muted sheen of the pacifier. The careful way everything had been placed, like it mattered.

The answer tightened my chest.

“No,” I whispered. “It just felt quieter. And lonelier. And like I was always holding myself still so nothing could go wrong.”

My fingertips brushed the edge of the pacifier. The plastic was cool, grounding. A shiver traced up my arm.

“This is…” My voice broke. “This is a lot, Graeme.”

“I know,” he said. “If it’s too much, tell me. I’ll put everything away. We can pretend I never did it.”

Panic flared, sharp and immediate.

“Don’t,” I said quickly, turning. He was closer now, kneeling a short distance behind me, one hand braced on the rug, the other resting easy on his thigh. Concern threaded through his expression, soft but unmistakable. “Please don’t.”

His shoulders eased, just a fraction.

“Okay,” he said. “I won’t. This is your corner, Rudy. Yours. I won’t touch anything unless you ask. You get to decide if—and how—you use it.”

You get to decide.

The words settled somewhere deep and tender.