Page 36 of The Rose and the Hound (Ashes and Roses #2)

After Rose’s breakdown in the parking lot, she let me drive her home.

“Let” is probably the wrong word. I maneuvered her into my car and physically clipped her seatbelt for her.

When we arrived at her building, she left without a word, still crying silently.

I tried to follow but she made a stop motion with her hand, and as difficult as it was, I held myself back from following her, opting instead to sit in my car and watch her building.

This was my go-to activity lately. Watching Rose from a distance.

I had become Rose’s caretaker and protector.

It was the role I was born to play, but given she wouldn’t let me near her, I performed it by correspondence.

The first gift was not a gift. It was a bag of groceries left by her door: soup, ginger tea, oranges, and honey.

I told myself it was a necessity, not indulgence.

I wrote nothing, signed nothing, and rang no bell.

If she guessed it was me, she didn’t say.

If she resented the bags when she found them, she didn’t throw them out where I could see.

The building door remained propped open by a brick.

While I was pleased with the convenience of access, the lack of security infuriated me.

The second gift was a library discard I found in a thrift shop: The Velveteen Rabbit, a book about how enduring love made the toy rabbit “real.” He was not real by birth or creation; he was real simply because he was so dearly loved.

He was transformed through hardship and was just as loveable with his worn ears and thinned fur.

Inside the cover, stamped in red ink, was the word WITHDRAWN.

I set it carefully against her door and stepped back. I didn’t knock.

Days stretched and cinched. I tried to keep my hands off my phone but compulsively checked it every ten minutes. She did not reply to my message asking if she’d eaten. She didn’t answer when I sent another.

Me: Here if you need me. No pressure.

The quiet between us wasn’t punishment; it was quarantine. I told myself that I could live on the outside if it meant she could breathe.

I drove past her building frequently. I practiced not wanting more, hoping it would become an established thought pattern. It felt like holding a plank over deep water and pretending it was a bridge.

On the fifth day, my phone buzzed with a new message. I grabbed it instantly, hoping against hope it was a response from Rose.

Paul Callahan: Are you free for a call?

I called him straight away.

“Is this ... Ace?” Paul sounded tentative.

“Yes, this is Ace. Have you got news for me, Paul?”

I sat in my car, staring at the inactive speedometer.

There was a pause, filled with the small noises of wherever Paul was—paper, a chair, a distant cough.

“I don’t know the protocol for this,” Paul said finally.

“I wanted to tell her in person, but she's ... She needs gentleness around edges right now, and I don’t have a good map for that. I spoke to her when I lodged the test, and she seemed ... unsettled. I don’t know how to deliver this news. I know you’re ... working for her.”

“Yes, Rose is also a friend. What is the result?”

“She’s mine,” he said, his voice choking on the last word.

“My daughter,” Paul said, and his voice changed on the word, softer and more afraid.

“Well, one of my daughters. My wife knows. I haven’t told the girls.

I told Rose we’d meet up if I was her dad.

Please tell her I still want to do that.

I can’t be a dad to her; so much time has passed, but I can be a friend. I can be some kind of family.”

I pressed the heel of his hand into my brow. I pictured Rose in the parking lot with the rejection email, the way she’d curled inward like a kitten grabbed by the scruff of her neck. Then I pictured this news on top of that, a weight added to a weight, but also a relief. Closure.

“I can tell her,” Paul said quietly. A cough. “But you ... you seem like someone who might care how she hears it.”

“I care,” I said, choosing the simplest version of the truth. “I care.”

Paul. Father. The word did strange things to my heart. I found Rose’s father. I brought her closure. It felt good to finally have done something right.

Back at my apartment, I stared at the square card wrapped in cellophane. I’d bought it on impulse, the solo yellow rose on the front calling to something in me. I slit the plastic with a butter knife and slid the card free.

I wrote slowly, as if that could keep the words from shaking. I would give her another gift, and finally, I would write something to accompany it.

My Zahra,

If this week is more than a week can hold, I’m not surprised. You have been asked to carry too much for too long. You don’t owe anyone a quick reaction or a good story about it. You don’t owe anyone grace, either, but you’ll give it anyway because that’s who you are.

I can’t tell you what to do with this news.

I’ve tried to call you, and when I deliver this, I’ll be outside in my car, waiting for as long as you need, just so you know that someone is with you in this moment.

All I can say is this: you are allowed to decide what becomes part of you and what does not.

You are allowed to put a heavy thing down and pick it up later, or never.

Paul is your father. He and his wife would love to meet with you. He knows it’s too late to be a father, but he does want to know you. And you are more than worth knowing.

If you want noise, I can be noise. If you want quiet, I can be quiet on the other side of the wall.

With love and great regret,

Your Kalb

The nursery two neighborhoods over kept odd hours. I found the door open and a woman watering trays of leafy green seedlings. I chose a potted gardenia, which apparently symbolized love and unspoken apologies. The tag read: Low light. Forgiving. Cleans the air.

I grabbed a gift tag from the counter and wrote a message: For whatever grows next.

I carried the plant to her building just before dusk, when the hall lights came on and the day had already declared itself done. Setting the pot and card gently beside her door, I knocked but did not wait.

Hesitating on the stairs, I paused at the landing below hers and listened. Footsteps, the whisper of a lock, the slightest scrape of the door.

I took the last flight down with a steadiness that surprised me. The gifts had begun again. I would have to learn the discipline to stop if she asked. I would have to learn the discipline to keep going, quietly and patiently, if she didn’t.

I settled into my car to begin the long wait, busying myself with emails.

I had a new mission. Helping Rose overcome her past was a journey that I had begun a few days ago through a lawyer I frequently worked with.

Sealing records was difficult for adults, but I had a secret weapon. I had Dr. Vincent Conti.