The metallic clang of tools and the faint scent of engine oil welcomed Annette like a second skin.The workshop buzzed with steady motion-compressors humming,welding sparks flashing in the distance,and the low murmur of conversation clipped with technical shorthand.Here,everything made sense.Every system had a diagram.Every malfunction,a root cause.
Annette slipped into her coveralls,tied her dreds locks back,and approached her workstation.But even with her practiced movements,there was a fragility to her rhythm-slightly slower,slightly heavier.Like someone trying to walk through water.
From across the bay,Jayson watched her.
He wiped his hands on a rag,set down a socket wrench,and strolled over with his usual half-grin-a little crooked,a little too knowing.
"Afternoon,Netty,"he said,using the nickname only he could get away with."Your smile took a personal day?"
Annette offered a tight,tired smile,but it didn't meet her eyes.
Jayson tilted his head,lowering his voice as he leaned against the edge of the workbench."So...Netty. Did everything go as planned?".
Annette hesitated,staring at the grass-lined blueprint in front of her,though she wasn't really seeing it.
"It happened,"she said finally."I saw him.He didn't even flinch.Looked at me like I was just...another grown-up."
Jayson studied her for a moment,his expression softening.
"Asta,"he said gently.
She nodded.
Jayson didn't push further.He never did.Maybe that's why she always found herself telling him things she wouldn't say aloud to anyone else.
"I sat right there,beside him,"she murmured,her voice taut."Watched him ask Sophie for tea.Watched him crawl into her lap.Like she's his mother.Like she's always been."
Jayson stayed quiet,letting the weight of her words settle between them.
Annette forced a small laugh,bitter at the edges."She was calm.Graceful.Like she rehearsed for the part.I felt like a background character in my own child's life."
Jayson jaw twithed,but he kept his tone light."You're there now.That matters.It might not be magic overnight,but you're showing up."
"I don't know if that's enough,"she whispered."I'm trying to be okay with her.With...all of it.But seeing it?Seeing him lean into her like I was just the stranger who brought store-bought cake-"
Her voice broke off,too raw to continue.
Jayson reached over and gently nudged her shoulder with his."Netty...you've been through worse and stood taller.Coffee fields at dawn.Leaky dorm rooms.Ten-hours shifts in a furnace warehouse in Dubai.You didn't fold then."
"That was survival,"she said."This is failure."
He paused,meeting her eyes."No.This is redemption."
Their eyes locked.Just for a second,something unsaid stirred between them.Then Annette blinked,looking away,letting the moment pass like always.
Jayson cleared his throat and straightened."Well...let's channel that angst into this poor transmission,shall we?I think it's begging for your attention."
Annette exhaled,grateful for the shift in energy."You're right.Back to bolts and burnt clutches."
As they moved toward the vehicle bay,side by side as always,Martin cast one more glance at her-subtle,fond,and a little bit aching.
He still wouldn't say it.Not yet.Not while her heart was so tangled in pieces that didn't belong to him.
But he'd wait.
Even if she never looked back.
The clatter of tools and the hiss of a pneumatic jack faded into a distant hum as Jayson leaned over the open hood of a car,pretending to focus on a belt adjustment.In truth,his hands moved from memory.His mind was elsewhere-still caught in the shape of Annette's voice,the brittle edge behind her words,the quiet collapse in her eyes.
He had known she wasn't okay the moment she walked in.
Annette always wore her moods like her scent-subtle,but impossible not to notice if you were close enough.And Jayson had been close for years.Too close.Close enough to carry her secrets,but never close enough to hold her hand.
He remembered her in their first year at university:fierce,sun-worn,with grease under her fingernails and dreams bigger than their entire campus.She'd worked part-time in hotel by washing dishes while acing exams,the sturbornly refusing to let poverty define her.Then came the pregnancy.The mess.The silence.The leaving.
He never judged her for it.He couldn't.He knew too much.The nights she spent crying in the dim backroom of the women's hostel.The way she fought for that child even when the world said she had nothing to offer.She didn't leave Asta because she didn't love him-she left because she did.
And now she was back,and broken in places she couldn't name.Watching Sophie raise her son with grace and presence must've felt like watching someone else live the life she once imagined.No wonders her smile didn't show up today.
Jayson clenched the wrench tighter.
He hated that she still hurt.
He hated even more than he couldn't fix it.
He'd carried this quiet affection for her so long it had grown into something both sacred and painful.She knew-0f course she did.She wasn't blind.But she never acknowledged it.And he never pressed.
Not because he was afraid she'd reject him less if he did.
And Jayson would rather be her silent shelter than risk becoming another man who left her worse than he found her.
He adjusted the pulley with a small snap,muttering under his breath.
"Idiot."
He meant himself.
One day-maybe-he'd tell her.
But not today.
Today she needed a friend more than she needed anyone brave.
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The night folded softly around the house,cloaking it in a hush that only deepened Sophie's sense of quiet disconnection.After the visit to Wangari's,she'd returned home with Asta in tow-unexpected,but not surprising.He had clung to her with an urgency that made refusal unthinkable.
Now,the house hummed with routine.
She moved through the motions with practiced precision-folding away her thoughts as she folded his clothes,setting water to boil with the same measured calm she used to set her emotions aside.In the Kitchen,she stirred the ugali with one hand,the other balancing a container of fermented milk.Asta's favorite.It was always the simple things for him-food that filled his belly and reminded him he was safe.
After dinner,she bathed him.Warm water,gentle lather,soft towels.She dressed him in clean cotton,kissed his damp forehead,and let him giggle against her shoulders while they played with a toy bus until his eyelids began to flutter.
She barely exchanged a dozen words with her husband.Their coversation ,if it could still be called that,had grown thin in recent months.Predictable,sterile.
"The food is ready."
"Your pajamas are here."
"I'm putting Asta to bed."
Nothing more.Nothing less.
And perhaps that was easier-easier than admitting that something inside her had shifted the moment Annette entered the picture.Something uncertain and sharp.
Sophie lay down beside Asta,tucking him beneath his light blanket.His fingers curled into the fabric of her sleeve,his breath brushing warm against her collarbone.
But after a while,something didn't sit right.
She frowned in the dim light,her hand brushing lightly over his back.His breathing was fast-too fast.Shallow,uneven.She placed her palm gently against his forehead and stilled.
Hot.
Far too hot.
Her heart contracted,a flicker of maternal fear snapping through her chest.She sat up slowly,pressing the back of her hand to his cheek,then his neck.
God...when did it start?Was he fine earlier?Had she missed something in the rhythm of the evening?
Sophie stood quickly,crossed to the wall switch ,and turned on the lamp.The soft light painted Asta's flushed face in tones of rose and gold.He stirred,murmuring something unintelligible,then shifted restlessly under the blanket.
The temperature was unmistakable now.His skin burned beneath her touch.
A fever.
High.
Sophie's calm began to fray at the edges.Not panic-but the kind of deep,alert fear that only mothers know.She wrapped her arms around him,lifted him gently into her lap.
"It's okay."she whispered."I,ve got you."
As he whimpered softly,nestling into her chest,her thoughts scattered like dry leaves in wind.
Was it the visit?The excitement?The shift in energy,the sudden weight of so many new faces?Or something brewing already-quiet and unseen,waiting until nightfall to make itself known?
Sophie held him tighter,her jaw clenched against the gnawing hair.
I'm the one he reaches for,she thought.I'm the one he needs when the fever comes.
And yet,as the night deepened and Asta burned quietly against her chest,she couldn't silence the lingering shadow in her own heart:
What if she wants him back?
She didn't wake her husband.
There was a quiet pride Sophie held close,the kind that didn't announce itself but moved with certaintly in the dark.She carried Asta to the bathroom,dabbing his body with a damp cloth,whispering gentle reassuarances even as her mind calculated the hours since dinner,the degree of heat radiating from his small body,the medicine she had in the cabinet.
Paracetamol.
She administered the syrup in small,coaxing spoonfuls,waiting between each as he blinked up at her with glassy,unfocused eyes.His lashes clung together from tears he hadn't cried.His head lolled against her shoulder,trusting,even in discomfort.
She returned him to bed but didn't leave his side.She stayed,upright against the pillows,one hand resting lightly on his chest to feel the rise and fall of each breath.The room was warm,too warm.She opened the window a crack.The breeze crept in,carrying with it the faint scent of wet earth and street dust.
Minutes passed.Maybe an hour.She lost track.
Her mind wouldn't quiet.
Not from fear-but from the echo of something else.A whisper that had followed her all evening.
She saw him today.His mother.
The title scraped oddy against her thoughts.Not out of disrespect-but out of anxiety.Jealousy,maybe.Or something more honest:fear of displacement.
She had always known Annette existed.A woman from the past.A shape in photographs.A name avoided in conversation.But today,she'd seen her.Touched by regret.Defined by absence.Hungry with longing.
Sophie had expected bitterness.She hadn't expected fragility.
And that unnerved her most of all.
Because somewhere in her,beyond her composure,beyond her efforts to be dignified and kind,she feared that fragility might earn something she could never compete with.
Biology.Redemption.The possibility of reunion.
She looked down at Asta.
He was cooler now.Breathing easier.
Still,she couldn't move.
She watched him sleep with the quiet terror only a mother knows-the one that doesn't shout,but waits.Waits for fever to break.Waits for breath to steady.Waits to see who a child will run to tomorrow.
She lay back,arms curled around him,eyes open toward the ceiling.In the silence,every thought was louder.
Even the one she never dared to speak aloud:
If Annette decides to stay...what happens to me?