I keep singing anyway, even after the water starts to run cold. Because maybe I’m not singing for her. Not just for her, at least.
I’m also singing for the twelve-year-old boy who watched his brother choose darkness so he wouldn’t have to. For the young man who held an abandoned newborn and promised to keep him safe, then failed spectacularly. For every version of myself that’s ever been too scared to let someone in.
I press my face into Eliana’s wet hair and let my voice fall quiet.
Eventually, long after the song ends, I reach up to turn off the water. Eliana stirs when I shift her weight, mumbling something incoherent, but she doesn’t fully wake. I dry her off with one of her threadbare towels and carry her to the bed.
She’s dead weight in my arms. I pull back the covers and lay her
