For a moment, he didn’t move. The car’s AC still hummed softly, holding back the heatwave that had swallowed half the West Coast that August—one of those relentless summers the news kept calling “historic.” From the outside, his sedan looked ordinary enough among the rows of sun-beaten California cars, but inside, Morris sat frozen in a pocket of cold air and even colder thoughts.

He should’ve gone into the mall already. He had groceries to pick up, work emails to answer, a life to maintain. A life he had stitched together with careful precision, just enough routine to stop his mind from drifting backward. But today—the heat, the exhaustion, the memory of a deadline at work—everything had slipped, and the past, that stubborn shadow, had crept back in.

He rubbed the bridge of his nose and looked outside.

Across the parking lot, he spotted them: a lanky teenage boy and a middle-aged man, probably father and son. The boy was tall, all elbows and knees, gesturing animatedly as he spoke. Something in the way he moved, in the brightness of his grin, tugged at Morris’s chest.

Fourteen.
His child—if things had gone differently—would have been fourteen this year.

Or maybe the child would’ve been a girl. He never knew. Sometimes he imagined a son, sometimes a daughter. The image shifted like smoke. Either way, the child had never been born, and the versions of Morris who still tried to picture them always ended up in the same place: regret.

Kelly’s face appeared in his mind, uninvited, as vivid as the setting sun outside—a face that time hadn’t blurred even after all the crying, the guilt, the years.

He exhaled sharply, irritated with himself. Not now. Not here. He had trained himself to keep those memories buried under work schedules, meetings, and spreadsheets. He didn’t have room for ghosts.

But today, the ghosts insisted.

Back then, he’d been a different man—spoiled, reckless, naïve in the way only wealthy American boys with too much privilege and too little sense could be. Raised in a high-end neighborhood in San Diego, attending a private prep school with kids who carried designer backpacks and argued about Tesla models the way other teens argued about sports, Morris grew up in a bubble of success and expectation.

His father owned a small but profitable oil equipment company. His mother was the head accountant at a manufacturing corporation. Money wasn’t a question—never had been. Morris had everything: expensive toys, summer trips to Lake Tahoe, birthday parties with inflatable castles, the newest gaming consoles the moment they hit the shelves.

By high school, he had developed a certain confidence—too much confidence. Girls noticed him. Boys envied him. He glided through classes, not because he studied but because teachers often turned a blind eye to the sons of influential families. He applied to colleges out of state but ultimately chose a small local one, specifically because it required less effort. Everyone knew which professors accepted “late work with incentives,” which classes needed actual studying, and Morris had no intention of wasting his youth on textbooks.

He remembered those days too well—especially the way he treated women.

He winced at the memory.
God, he had been unbearable.

Flings, not relationships. Games, not commitments. A rotation of pretty faces—girls who looked good at parties and laughed at his jokes, girls who didn’t ask for more than he was willing to give. He hadn’t been cruel, not intentionally, but he had certainly been careless. After Stephanie, he learned what true consequences looked like.

Stephanie.

Even thinking her name felt like a bruise pressed too hard.

He leaned back against the headrest and closed his eyes.

He had met her in a nightclub during sophomore year. She wasn’t the elegant type he had previously admired. Stephanie was wild, unpredictable, electric—like a spark dropped into gasoline. Her red heels, flashing under neon lights, had been the first thing that caught his eye. Her carefree laughter, the next. She danced like the world wasn’t watching. And when their eyes met, she walked straight to him, cupped his face with both hands, and kissed him.

He’d been stunned.
He’d also never stood a chance.

They burned fast and bright—too bright. Stephanie was intoxicating, but her world was made of chaos: late-night parties, spontaneous road trips, reckless stunts that left Morris’s heart punching his ribs. She could be brilliant and artistic—writing poetry on the back of receipts, strumming a guitar until sunrise—but she could also be unsettling, unpredictable, frightening.

When her life fell apart, when her emotions spiraled, when her love tipped into obsession, Morris hadn’t known how to help her. He hadn’t even known how to help himself.

The memory tightened his throat.

And then came Kelly.

Sweet, steady, quiet Kelly. His opposite in every way. The woman he loved for real. The woman he lost because of fear, because of one argument he replayed countless nights in the dark.

The accident.
The hospital.
The monitors.
The silence.

He stopped thinking.

Enough.

His eyes opened quickly, as if pushing away the past by force. He reached for the door handle—

And froze again.

Because a small movement at the edge of his vision made him look up.

A child—no older than four—was climbing onto a dumpster near the back of the mall. The oversized T-shirt hung off his tiny shoulders. His legs were thin, sunburned. He lifted the lid of the dumpster with the determination of someone far too familiar with the task, then reached inside, rummaging through discarded fruit like it was a treasure chest.

The parking lot noise faded.
All Morris could hear was the pounding of his own heart.

Memories of childhood hunger never belonged in Morris’s life, but the guilt he carried made him sensitive to suffering—especially a child’s. Something inside him twisted sharply, something that had been asleep for years, something that whispered:

Do not ignore this.

The boy found a bruised apple, wiped it against his shirt, and took a bite. Then another. He climbed down carefully—too carefully, as if he’d fallen before.

And then he walked away.

Alone.

Morris didn’t think.
He opened the car door and stepped out into the heat.

His legs moved before he even realized he had made a decision. He followed the boy past rows of parked cars, past families arguing about dinner plans, past teenagers sipping iced sodas—past everyone who looked but did nothing.

The boy walked with purpose, tiny flip-flops slapping against the pavement. He never glanced back. Didn’t seem afraid. Just hungry.

Morris followed him across the street, then down a narrow alley smelling of asphalt, restaurant oil, and old cardboard. They walked for blocks—longer than Morris expected. The city changed around them. The modern storefronts gave way to smaller buildings with chipped paint, sagging fences, and yards littered with forgotten objects. An old neighborhood in decline—one of many tucked behind California’s coastal glamor.

Finally, the boy turned into a yard behind a crooked metal gate.

A house stood there—if one could still call it a house. The siding peeled off in long strips. The windows were clouded. The porch slanted like it was tired from holding itself up. The yard was scattered with broken bricks, empty cans, and what used to be a sandbox.

The boy slipped inside as though he belonged there.

Morris hovered at the gate, torn between respecting boundaries and the gut feeling that refusing to step in might be a mistake he would regret for the rest of his life.

He knocked.

The sound echoed through the yard like a question.

A minute later, the door opened, and a man appeared—a gaunt older man with red swollen eyes, unshaven stubble, and a T-shirt that looked like it had been worn for a week straight. His voice rasped when he spoke.

“You here about the boy?”

Morris straightened. “I… wanted to make sure he’s alright.”

The man squinted at him. “You from Child Services?”

“No. Just… just a citizen.”

The man grunted, stepped aside. “Then come in.”

The smell hit Morris first—a mixture of alcohol, stale bread, and old wood. The interior was cluttered, chaotic, but lived-in. And on the torn sofa sat the boy, the bruised apple in his hands, staring up with dark, curious eyes.

“Grandpa, who’s he?” the child asked.

“A kind man,” the old man said. “Says he wants to help.”

The word kind felt like a weight dropping into Morris’s stomach. He never thought of himself that way.

But the boy looked at him with such trust—trust he hadn’t earned—that Morris felt something shift inside him, something dangerous and hopeful all at once.

And that was the moment when Morris’s life—a life built on regret, guilt, work, and numb survival—quietly began to change.

The old man’s gaze slid from Morris to the boy and back again, wary but not hostile, like a stray dog that hadn’t decided whether this stranger came with food or a kick.

“You said you wanted to help,” the man said, one hand braced on the peeling doorframe. “You planning to adopt us or something, mister?”

Morris gave a faint, tired smile. “I was thinking more in the direction of groceries.”

The boy’s eyes lit up at that one word. Groceries. He didn’t grin the way most kids did at the mention of toys or games—it was food that woke his face up. That told Morris more than any social worker’s report ever could.

“My name’s Morris,” he said gently. “I saw your grandson near the mall dumpsters. It’s not very safe there. I just… got worried.”

“You and me both.” The old man snorted, then waved Morris in. “Name’s Carl. And that little troublemaker is Yuan. Come on, if you’re gonna judge my housekeeping, might as well do it from inside where the sun doesn’t cook your brain.”

Morris stepped into the dim living room, careful not to trip on the scattered cans and newspapers. Yuan slid off the couch, still clutching his apple, and moved closer, studying Morris like he was some rare animal at the zoo.

“You really brought us food?” the boy asked, skipping straight past small talk.

“If you’d like,” Morris replied. “Do you like… chicken nuggets? Fruit? Maybe a toy car or two?”

Yuan’s eyes widened. “Real ones? From the store?”

“Real ones,” Morris confirmed.

Something unclenched in Carl’s face then—some small scrap of dignity shoved aside by sheer necessity. He sighed heavily, the kind of sigh you only heard from someone who had been tired for ten years straight.

“Look, I didn’t ask for charity,” Carl muttered. “But I’m not proud enough to tell you no, either. His mom’s… not around. I got a small check, but it doesn’t go far. Some days he eats well. Some days he goes exploring. You know what I mean.”

Morris knew more than he wanted to.

He crouched down so he was eye-level with Yuan. “What’s your favorite food?”

The boy thought about it seriously, as if the wrong answer might make this stranger vanish. “Apples,” he said finally. “And pizza. And the orange juice from the gas station. The kind with the tiger on it.”

Morris felt his throat tighten. That list told its own story.

“Okay,” he said. “I’ll be right back.”

He drove to the nearest supermarket like somebody had lit a fuse in his chest. He didn’t think about why he cared so much. He didn’t think about Kelly, about the child they’d never had, about the way his arms felt painfully empty some nights for no good reason. He just grabbed a cart and started loading it.

Rotisserie chicken. Fresh fruit. Apples, bananas, grapes. Milk. Eggs. Bread. Cereal with cartoon animals on the box. Yogurt. Juice with the brightest labels. Pasta, sauce, some salad stuff he wasn’t sure they’d eat but bought anyway. A pack of pull-back toy cars he found on an aisle endcap. A couple of picture books with lots of colors.

At the checkout, the cashier glanced at his overflowing cart, then at him. “Kids’ party?” she asked.

“Something like that,” he said.

When he got back, Yuan was sitting on the front step, legs swinging, as if he’d been holding his breath the whole time and needed visual confirmation that the man had actually returned.

“You came back,” Yuan said, like it was the most surprising thing in the world.

“Of course,” Morris replied.

He carried the bags inside, filling the small, cluttered kitchen with the smell of fresh food. Carl shuffled after him, blinking like someone unused to abundance.

“You brought all that?” Carl whispered. “That must’ve cost—”

“It’s fine,” Morris cut in. “Think of it as… a welcome package. For… new neighbors.”

“We’ve lived here twenty years,” Carl said gruffly, but there was no real edge to it. His voice was softer when he added, “Thank you.”

Yuan, meanwhile, had discovered the toy cars. He gasped, then laughed out loud—a bright sound that bounced off the stained walls and made the whole room seem less suffocating.

“They’re so shiny,” he whispered, as if afraid someone might take them back. “Can I open them? Like right now?”

“Please do,” Morris said, smiling despite himself.

The boy ripped into the plastic with the joyful violence of a kid who rarely got to unwrap anything. One car was bright red, one blue, one yellow, one silver. He lined them up on the table, then drove them around the edges, making soft engine noises.

Something inside Morris cracked then. It wasn’t a dramatic shattering—more like a brittle shell finally giving way.

He’d wanted to be this kind of man once. The kind who made a child light up. The kind who walked into a room and brought safety with him. But life had gone sideways, and he’d spent years convincing himself he didn’t deserve that role.

Yet here he was, watching a boy he’d known for less than an hour act as if Morris had just handed him the moon.

“This isn’t right,” Morris heard himself say quietly that night, when he was back at his immaculate, silent apartment. His voice echoed off tidy walls and polished surfaces. He sat on the couch, staring at nothing. “It’s not right that a four-year-old has to dig through trash in one of the richest states in the country.”

The guilt that had eaten him from the inside for years shifted, changed shape. For the first time, it didn’t just look backward. It looked forward.

He didn’t sleep much.

He went back the next day. And the next. At first, he told himself he was simply making sure the kid was safe. Checking in. Dropping off groceries, kid-friendly snacks, the occasional cheap toy. But his visits grew longer. He found himself staying to talk.

Carl, it turned out, was not just “the drunk old man” his first impression suggested. Yes, he drank. Yes, the house was in a bad state. But there was tenderness in the way he spoke to Yuan. Pride, too.

“Maggie never wanted this life,” he said once, staring out the cracked window as Yuan drew circles in a coloring book Morris had brought. “My daughter wanted to be a singer. Moved up to LA, said she was gonna get discovered. Came back home pregnant. Stayed for a bit, then the itch to leave got bigger than the love for the baby, I guess. I’m not defending her. I’m just saying… life gets complicated. And not everyone’s built for responsibility.”

Morris swallowed. “And you?”

Carl gave a bitter half-smile. “I’m built for regret. That’s a different thing.”

The words lodged themselves in Morris’s chest like a shard of glass.
Yes. That part, he understood.

Yuan, oblivious to the adult weight in the air, looked up from his drawing. “Morris, look! This car goes to the beach.” He pointed at his scribble. “And this one goes to space.”

“Which one do you drive?” Morris asked.

Yuan pointed decisively to the yellow car. “This one. It never runs out of gas.”

“Lucky car,” Morris murmured.

Weeks turned into months. Morris’s coworkers gossiped lightly about how he never stayed late anymore. His parents asked why he sounded tired yet strangely peaceful on Sunday calls. He didn’t tell them about Yuan. Not yet. He didn’t have the words to explain why his heart now lived in two places: his comfortable apartment and that crumbling house near the mall.

He tried to help Carl cut back on drinking. Suggested free support groups. Printed pamphlets. Offered rides. Carl listened, nodded, promised to “think about it,” then always came up with a reason why “right now wasn’t a good time.”

But Morris could see, underneath all that, genuine love when the old man watched Yuan fall asleep on the couch with a toy car clenched in his fist.

“I’m no saint,” Carl muttered once, voice rough. “But I’ll be d— I’ll be… broken before I let them take him away from me.”

“Who’s ‘they’?” Morris asked.

“People in uniforms,” Carl said simply. “People who talk nice and smile while they’re packing kids into cars.”

Morris had no answer.

The call came on a Wednesday afternoon.

He was in a conference room, discussing some dull logistics report, when his phone buzzed. Unknown number. Normally, he would have ignored it during work. This time, some instinct made him answer.

“Morris?” The voice on the other end was hoarse, panicky. Carl.

“Yes. What’s wrong?”

“They’re here,” Carl whispered. In the background, Morris heard a child crying. His blood ran cold. “Some ladies from the county office. They got some papers. They say they’re taking Yuan. They say I ain’t his legal guardian. Maggie’s… gone. House fire, they say. Now they want to put the boy in a home.”

Morris rose so fast his chair almost tipped over. “I’m on my way.”

He didn’t remember half the drive. Just a blur of red lights, impatient honks, and the sound of his own pulse. When he pulled up in front of the old house, his hands were shaking.

Two women in light blue county polo shirts stood near the gate. Yuan was pressed into Carl’s chest, sobbing, clutching the hem of the old man’s shirt.

The older woman turned as Morris rushed up. “Sir, we’re conducting official business here.”

“That boy,” Morris said, breathing hard. “What’s happening to him?”

“We have an order from the court,” she replied, professional but not unkind. “The child’s mother is deceased. There are no legally documented guardians. This gentleman has no paperwork to support custody. The environment here is unsafe. We’re required to place the child into state care while the situation is evaluated.”

“Unsafe,” Carl repeated hollowly, as if the word had punched him.

“Please, sir,” the younger worker said gently, turning to Carl. “It isn’t punishment. He’ll get regular meals, medical checkups. You can petition the court for visitation. If you can get stable housing, maybe even guardianship again someday.”

“Someday,” Carl croaked. “He’s four. You want him to spend the best years of his life in some building with strangers?”

“Morris!” Yuan cried, seeing him. He reached out a hand, fingers spread, pleading. “Don’t let them take me!”

Morris felt something inside him snap.

He stepped forward before his brain had fully caught up. “What if I take him,” he heard himself say. “What if I become his guardian?”

The two women turned sharply, surprised.

“You?” the older one asked. “Do you have any relation to the child?”

“I… don’t,” Morris admitted. “Not by blood. But I’ve been helping this family for months. I’ve got a stable job, an apartment, no criminal record. I can provide for him. I already—” His voice broke, but he forced himself to continue. “I already care about him.”

Yuan stopped crying for a moment, eyes wide, hopeful, as if daring to believe this might work.

The younger social worker took a small step closer, studying Morris. “Are you serious? This isn’t a temporary babysitting situation. We’re talking legal responsibility. School, health care, everything. It’s not a decision to make out of impulse or… guilt.”

The word hit sharper than she knew.

Morris straightened. “I know what I’m saying. I’ll do whatever paperwork you need. Home visits, background checks. Whatever it takes. Just… don’t send him to an institution tonight.”

Carl nodded frantically. “He’s good people,” the old man insisted. “Feeds us. Plays with the boy. Comes by more than Maggie ever did. If anyone deserves Yuan, it’s him.”

The workers exchanged a look—one of those loaded, silent conversations only people in that field could have. Finally, the older one sighed.

“We can’t give you permanent custody on the spot,” she said. “But we do have emergency provisions for temporary guardianship in exceptional circumstances. If you’re willing to sign, attend training, and cooperate with our home checks, we might be able to place the child with you instead of a facility—for now.”

Yuan clung to Carl tighter. “What does that mean?”

“It means,” Morris said softly, dropping to his knees so he was level with the boy, “that you’d come live with me. In my place. With a bed. And a real bathtub. And a fridge that’s not empty.”

“Will I see Grandpa?” Yuan whispered.

Morris glanced at Carl, then at the workers. The younger one nodded. “We can arrange visitation.”

“Yes,” Morris said firmly. “You’ll see him. Every week. I promise.”

Yuan looked at him for one long, searching moment, as if trying to decide whether this man’s promises were different from all the other promises adults made and broke. Then, slowly, tears still sticking to his lashes, he nodded.

“Okay,” he whispered. “But can I bring my cars?”

Morris almost laughed through the lump in his throat. “We’ll bring the cars. All of them.”

Paperwork followed. Forms, signatures, warnings. Emergency guardianship. Temporary placement. Home evaluation to come. Follow-up calls. The social workers were thorough but not cold. They’d seen worse. They’d seen better. This, at least, was something hopeful.

When it was time to go, Carl crouched in front of his grandson, hands cupping the small face that meant more to him than the bottle ever had.

“You listen to Morris, hear?” he said, voice shaking. “You eat what he gives you. You sleep when he says. You don’t drive him nuts too much.”

“I’ll be good,” Yuan promised. “Will you… not drink so much?”

Carl flinched, then nodded slowly. “I’ll do my best, kiddo. For you.”

Morris watched them, feeling like he was looking straight at his own reflection from another timeline. A man full of regret, trying too late to make up for all his failures. A child who loved him anyway.

He put a hand on Carl’s shoulder. “We’ll visit this weekend,” he said. “You’re not losing him. You’re just… sharing.”

Carl’s eyes shone with unshed tears. “You’re a better man than I was at your age,” he muttered. “Don’t waste it.”

Later, when Morris opened the door to his apartment and watched Yuan step inside for the first time, he saw the boy physically stop, as if his brain couldn’t process that this spotless, bright space was now, at least temporarily, his home.

“It’s so big,” Yuan breathed. “And it doesn’t smell like smoke.”

Morris swallowed hard. “I guess that’s a plus.”

The boy walked slowly from room to room, touching everything with reverent fingertips—the couch, the bookshelf, the framed pictures on the wall. He paused at the view out the window: rows of palm trees swaying faintly in the evening breeze, the distant line of freeway traffic, the faint glow of the mall neon sign.

“Which one’s my bed?” he asked.

Morris had spent the previous night assembling something he’d ordered in a panic off an express shipping app—a simple kid-sized bed with blue sheets and little white stars printed on them. He led Yuan to the spare bedroom, heart racing like he was about to present a major business proposal.

The boy stared at the bed as if it were a throne.

“All this is for me?” he whispered.

“Every pillow,” Morris said. “Every blanket.”

He didn’t expect the boy to hug him. But Yuan did. Tiny arms wrapped around his waist, holding tight, trusting completely. Morris froze. Then, slowly, gently, he hugged back.

“I won’t let anything bad happen to you,” Morris murmured into the boy’s hair before he realized he’d said it out loud.

A promise he knew he couldn’t make completely true. Life was unpredictable. Cars crashed. Hearts stopped. People left. But still, he said it.

And he meant it more than he’d meant anything in years.

Of course, life didn’t pause to let him figure out fatherhood in peace. The very next morning, reality smacked him in the face.

He had to go to work. Yuan was too young to be left alone. Daycare required registration, health forms, vaccinations records—none of which he had. He needed someone to stay with the boy. Someone he trusted. Someone good with kids. Someone who wouldn’t ask too many questions right away.

Cassie.

The idea hit him while he was staring at his coffee. Cassie—Kelly’s best friend. The woman who had sat at his table that awful night after the funeral, listened to him confess everything, and still told him, gently, that he wasn’t a monster. The woman who had called him on holidays during his darkest years, just to make sure he was still around. The woman with the sad eyes and unexpectedly sharp humor.

They’d kept in touch loosely, mostly through social media likes and short texts. He knew, from those glimpses, that she’d had it rough lately—marriage, divorce, a little girl, job loss.

He picked up his phone before doubt could interfere.

She answered on the second ring. Her voice sounded the same. Warm. A little tired.

“Morris?” she said. “Hey. This is a surprise.”

“I need a favor,” he blurted. “Actually—no. That’s not fair. I need… help. And I want to pay for it. Properly.”

There was a pause. “You okay?”

“Not really,” he admitted. “But it’s a good kind of ‘not really.’ Can you come over? I’d rather explain in person. I’ll text you the address.”

An hour later, she stood at his door, her little daughter clinging shyly to her leg, a stuffed rabbit dangling from one small hand. Cassie looked older than when he’d last seen her in person—shadows under her eyes, lines of worry around her mouth—but there was still a calm strength in her posture.

“Wow,” she said, stepping inside. “Nice place. So this is how the other half lives, huh?”

“It’s mostly IKEA,” he said automatically. “With a mortgage.”

A small voice drifted from down the hall. “Morris? Where are the spoons?”

Cassie turned, eyebrows rising. “Is that… a kid?”

“Yes,” Morris said. “Two, actually. This is Yuan. And this is…” He turned to Cassie’s daughter, who ducked behind her mom. “What’s your name again, princess?”

The little girl whispered it, almost inaudibly. “Lila.”

“Lila,” he echoed. “Right. Very pretty.”

Yuan appeared in the hallway, hair sticking up on one side, wearing one of Morris’s oversized T-shirts like a dress. He stopped when he saw Cassie and Lila.

“We have guests?” he asked, cautious but curious.

“Yes,” Morris said. “This is Cassie. She was my friend before you were even born. And this is Lila.”

Yuan studied Lila, then lifted his hand in a small wave. “Hi.”

Lila peeked out, considered him. “Hi,” she squeaked back.

Cassie looked between Morris and the boy. “I’m going to take a wild guess and say this is the part where you explain.”

He did. He told her everything—finding Yuan at the mall dumpsters, meeting Carl, the social workers, the emergency guardianship papers now sitting like a ticking clock on his kitchen counter. Cassie listened, eyes widening, then softening, then filling with something like admiration he didn’t feel he deserved.

“So,” he concluded, “I need someone to stay with him while I’m at work. I thought of you because you’re great with kids, and you’re… between jobs. I can pay you a proper salary. You can bring Lila. We can set clear boundaries. I’m not asking for charity. I’m asking for a partnership.”

“You want me to be a nanny,” she said slowly.

“Yes,” he admitted. “But one who’s treated like family, not staff.”

Cassie looked at Yuan, who was now showing Lila his toy cars, carefully explaining the important difference between the blue one (fast) and the silver one (very fast). Her daughter, usually wary of new places, actually smiled.

“This place smells good,” Lila declared. “Not like the apartment. The apartment smells like hallway.”

Morris laughed. “I’ll take that as a compliment.”

Cassie exhaled, decision settling over her like a cloak. “Okay,” she said. “I’ll do it.”

“You will?”

“Yeah. I like the kid. I like your panic. And trust me, I know what it’s like to have life rearranged overnight. Maybe helping you will help me too.”

She said it lightly, but there was truth there.

And just like that, his apartment changed.

It was no longer a quiet museum of one man’s regrets. It became a living thing. Mornings started with cereal crunching in bowls and kids arguing over which cartoon to watch. The hallway echoed with small footsteps and laughter. His desk—once obsessively neat—gathered stray crayons and half-finished drawings. Someone taped a paper star to his monitor. He left it there.

He’d come home after work to the smell of pasta or chicken, to the sound of Cassie’s laugh, to Lila’s shy stories and Yuan’s animated retellings of “the coolest thing that happened today.” Sometimes the coolest thing was finding a beetle on the sidewalk.

Carl stayed in the picture, too. Every Saturday, Morris drove Yuan to see his grandfather. They brought groceries and folding chairs for the yard, sat under the crooked tree while Yuan raced his cars through the dust. Carl’s drinking slowed—not stopped, but slowed—now that someone was watching. Now that he had to look his grandson in the eye every week.

One evening, after the kids had gone to bed and the dishwasher hummed softly in the background, Morris sat at the kitchen table while Cassie dried dishes.

“The county called today,” he said quietly.

Her hands stilled. “And?”

“They reminded me that emergency guardianship is temporary. They’re going to start the process of either pulling Yuan into the system or… figuring out a long-term placement.”

“You mean adoption,” Cassie said.

“Yes.” He swallowed. “And they made it very clear that single men statistically have a harder time passing through approval. They didn’t say ‘get married or forget it,’ but the implication was there.”

Cassie finished drying the plate and set it down. “So you’re going to find a wife.”

The way she said it made it sound like he was ordering something off a menu. He winced.

“I don’t want some fake setup,” he muttered. “Yuan deserves real stability, not a scheme. But I also can’t picture him in a state facility. I… I think I want to be his dad. For real. Not just until the paperwork expires.”

Cassie watched him, eyes searching his face. Then she asked a question that landed like a meteor.

“Morris,” she said softly, “do you really not remember me at all? From before Kelly?”

He blinked. “What?”

“Before the accident. Before you grew up.” She gave a small, ironic smile. “Before you learned how to be the person you are now.”

He frowned, pulling up old, dusty mental files. “We met… through Kelly. At that café. And again at her office Christmas party. And then at the—”

“No,” Cassie interrupted gently. “That’s when you noticed me. We met long before that. Or rather, I met you. You just didn’t see me.”

The words hit him with a strange déjà vu. “What are you talking about?”

She sighed, leaned back against the counter, crossing her arms as if she needed the support. “Remember your freshman year of college? Local campus. Parties every weekend. Girls in short dresses, guys in baseball caps. You had a reputation. The guy with the car and the smile and too much confidence.”

Morris opened his mouth, then closed it. He had been that guy.

“There was this girl,” Cassie continued. “Not your type. Dark hair, crooked teeth, okay grades, okay clothes. She sat in the back row of your economics class. Laughed at your jokes even when they weren’t that funny. Always hoped you’d sit next to her in the library. You didn’t. You were too busy with the tall blond girl from the Frisbee team.”

A faint memory stirred. A face in the corner of his field of vision. A backpack decorated with little patches. Someone holding the door for him once, flushing when he said thanks. He had never attached a name.

“That girl,” Cassie said quietly, “was me.”

He stared at her. Really stared. Not as Kelly’s best friend. Not as the woman who had once brought him tissues at the hospital. Not as the nanny who now kept his household from collapsing.

He looked back and, for a heartbeat, saw that younger girl in her eyes. The crush. The hurt.

“I spent months orbiting you,” she said, wry amusement laced with old pain. “Convincing myself that if I wore a different jacket, you’d notice. If I laughed at the right time, you’d ask me out. But all you saw were the girls who looked like they walked out of a magazine. Which is your right. You didn’t owe me anything. But it stung.”

“Cassie,” he whispered. “I… had no idea.”

“Of course you didn’t.” She shrugged. “You were young. And honestly? So was I. When my best friend later fell in love with you, it was… complicated. I was happy for her and kind of proud that I’d once had feelings for a guy who actually turned out to be decent. Eventually.”

He flinched. “Eventually being the key word.”

“You made mistakes,” she said. “Big ones. But you owned them. You grieved. You changed. That’s more than some people ever do.”

Silence stretched between them, full but not hostile.

“And now,” Cassie added, almost lightly, “life has a sense of humor. Because the boy who never saw me is standing in his kitchen, asking me to help him build a family.”

“I wasn’t just asking you to help with paperwork,” he blurted, heart pounding. “I was going to ask you something else.”

She raised a brow. “Oh?”

He swallowed. “Cassie… would you marry me?”

The words sounded ridiculous, rushed, wrong and somehow right all at once. He expected her to laugh, to accuse him of desperation, to say no.

Instead, she just went very still.

“For Yuan?” she asked.

“For Yuan,” he said. “And Lila. And… maybe for us, too. I don’t know what this would look like exactly. I’m not proposing some fairy-tale romance. You deserve better than that. But I respect you. I trust you with the people I care about most. I like coming home to you. And if there’s even a chance that we could build something steady together, something that keeps those kids safe…” He broke off, shook his head. “I’d rather try than sit back and watch the system roll over us.”

Cassie’s eyes shimmered, but she didn’t look away. “Do you love me?” she asked, not dramatically, just honestly.

He opened his mouth, then closed it again. He thought of Kelly, of Stephanie, of all the versions of himself he’d had to bury. He thought of the way his chest relaxed when Cassie laughed, the way her presence filled the empty spaces in his home, the way she spoke to Yuan and Lila as if they were not burdens but blessings.

“I don’t know what my love looks like now,” he said slowly. “I know what regret feels like. I know what fear feels like. With you… I feel calm. I feel hopeful. I don’t know if that counts.”

“It does,” she said softly. “More than you think.”

He waited for her answer, pulse drumming in his ears.

She smiled then, a real smile that reached her eyes and softened the lines of worry. “Yes,” she said simply. “I’ll marry you.”

He exhaled a breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding. “You will?”

“With conditions.” Her tone turned mock-stern. “We do this honestly. No pretending for outsiders’ sake. We talk. We argue when we need to. We don’t use the kids as emotional shields. And if someday we decide this isn’t working romantically, we still keep the family part. Because that’s the priority.”

“Yes,” he said. “Agreed. All of that. And… thank you.”

She shook her head. “Don’t thank me yet. Wait until the county throws paperwork at us.”

They told Yuan and Lila a week later, after the courthouse, after the signatures, after the quick civil ceremony overseen by a judge who’d clearly seen every version of human drama framed by government forms.

“So are you my mom now?” Yuan asked, eyes huge, when Cassie knelt in front of him.

“If you want me to be,” she said gently. “I’d love to be.”

He thought for a moment, then nodded. “Okay. But I still call Grandpa Grandpa.”

“Good,” Cassie said. “He’d be mad if you didn’t.”

Lila climbed onto Morris’s lap, her serious little face tipped up. “And you’re my dad now?” she asked.

“If you’ll have me,” he replied, voice rough.

She put her small hand on his cheek. “You give good hugs. Mom cries less when you’re here. That means yes.”

He laughed, tears stinging his eyes.

It wasn’t perfect. Nothing magical happened overnight. There were adjustments. Fights over screen time, over vegetables, over who used the last of the shampoo and didn’t replace it. Some nights Morris lay awake, staring at the ceiling, thinking of Kelly and wondering what she would say if she could see him now.

But when he looked over at Cassie sleeping beside him, when he tiptoed down the hallway and saw two small shapes breathing evenly in their beds, the crushing weight of his guilt loosened a little.

He had ruined things once. Twice. Maybe more. But here, now, he was getting something right.

Years passed.

The Orange County Mall stayed where it was. Cars still shimmered in summer heat. New kids chased each other between the stores. Whole generations grew up buying pretzels and sneakers and movie tickets under the same glaring lights. The world kept spinning.

And one winter, when the company where Morris worked finally expanded enough to give out generous bonuses, he did something he’d dreamed of since he first heard Yuan talk about the beach.

He booked four plane tickets to Hawaii.

The look on the kids’ faces at the airport was worth every overtime hour he’d ever worked. Yuan pressed himself against the huge window, tracking the airplanes taxiing past like they were giant toy versions of his childhood cars. Lila clutched her stuffed rabbit, whispering a running commentary on everyone’s outfits. Cassie, boarding pass in hand, looked like she still couldn’t quite believe they were doing this.

“Are we really going over the ocean?” Yuan asked, wide-eyed, as they shuffled down the jet bridge.

“Really,” Morris said. “No dumpsters. No concrete. Just water and sand for days.”

Yuan grinned. “Good. I’m going to build a castle taller than you.”

On their third evening in Honolulu, the sky turned molten gold as the sun sank toward the horizon. The waves rolled in gently, lapping at their ankles as they walked along the shore. Tourists snapped selfies. Seagulls glided overhead. The warm air smelled like salt and sunscreen and grilled food from beachside stalls.

Yuan and Lila were in matching swimsuits, hair stiff with dried saltwater, cheeks sun-kissed. Morris kicked a ball with them on the wet sand—letting them score, then pretending outrage when they did. Their laughter blended with the hiss of the surf into a sound so pure he felt like his heart might burst.

Cassie lay on a lounge chair under a striped umbrella, watching them with a soft smile. A tropical drink sweated in her hand. A wide-brimmed hat shaded her face. For once, there were no guardianship officers to call back, no school meetings to attend, no bills waiting in a stack on the counter. Just them. A family. However oddly assembled.

“Morris!” she called when the ball sailed toward her. “You’re supposed to aim for the children, not your wife.”

He jogged over, chest heaving slightly, sand sticking to his legs. “I’m equal opportunity chaotic,” he said. “How’s the view?”

She glanced at the ocean, at the kids sprinting after a rogue wave, then back at him. “Pretty unbelievable.”

He sank down beside her on the chair, leaning back on his elbows. “You mean the sunset, right?”

“Sure,” she said. “Let’s go with that.”

For a long moment, they simply watched their children—because they were their children now, fully and truly—race up and down the shoreline, leaving footprints that disappeared with each incoming wave.

“I used to think,” Morris said quietly, “that some mistakes disqualified you from happiness forever. That if you messed up badly enough, the only fair outcome was to live in regret until you ran out of days.”

Cassie’s hand found his, fingers threading through. “You did mess up,” she said gently. “You broke hearts. You made cowardly choices. You hurt someone you loved. None of that disappears because you moved on.”

“I know,” he said. “I don’t want it to. I just… didn’t expect life to give me another chance. To be someone different. Someone better.”

She squeezed his hand. “You didn’t get a free pass. You worked for this. Every time you showed up for Yuan. Every time you checked Lila’s homework. Every time you didn’t run away when things got hard. That’s how people earn second chances, Morris. Not with big apologies, but with small, consistent choices.”

He turned his head, studying her profile—the lines at the corners of her eyes, the freckles across her nose, the calm strength in the set of her mouth.

“Are you happy?” he asked.

She smiled, eyes not leaving the kids. “I’m exhausted,” she said. “My back hurts from the plane. I will be washing sand out of our clothes for three weeks. And I have never, ever been happier.”

A wave crashed closer, sending cool foam over his feet. He laughed. “You know,” he said, “if someone had told the old me that one day my idea of heaven would be chasing sticky children down a beach on a family vacation, I would’ve asked what they were drinking.”

“And the new you?” she asked.

He watched Yuan fall dramatically into the sand, then pop back up, triumphant. Watched Lila help him shake sand out of his hair. Watched the sun slip lower, painting the ocean in colors he didn’t have names for.

“The new me,” he said quietly, “thinks this is more than heaven. This is… redemption.”

Cassie rested her head on his shoulder. “Then don’t waste it,” she whispered.

He kissed her hair. “Not a chance.”

As the last sliver of sun disappeared beyond the horizon, Yan shouted, “Look, Dad! The ocean ate the light!”

Dad.
The word hit Morris like a warm wave. Not like a title he was playing at. Not like a role he borrowed temporarily from the state.

Dad. His.

“I see it, buddy,” he called back, voice thick. “But you know what? It’ll be back tomorrow.”

“How do you know?” Lila yelled.

“Because some things,” he said, wrapping an arm around Cassie and pulling her closer, “are worth trusting will come back, no matter how dark it gets.”

He believed it now.
He finally did.

And somewhere, maybe in some corner of the universe where old sorrows softened, he hoped that the people he’d hurt, the versions of himself he’d failed, could see him here on this American beach—just a man, bare feet in the sand, holding his family close as the Pacific murmured its endless song.

Not perfect.
Not forgiven entirely.
But moving forward, one small choice at a time.