JAKE

After dessert, Dad showed me a beagle mix puppy they had "accidentally" adopted because Mom couldn't resist his sad eyes at the shelter. She had named him Remy, saying Rembrandt was too long.

I watched as Dad leashed him and then stepped outside for their evening walk, while Mom and I retreated to the kitchen to clean up.

Mom and I stood at the sink, sleeves rolled up, me rinsing plates while she dried them. Remy's barks echoed faintly from the yard. The kitchen smelled of something baking and dish soap and childhood, when I used to help her when I was younger.

Mom nudged me with her elbow. "You've always been a good helper."

I snorted. "You say that like I didn't break two plates from your favorite collection the first time you let me touch the dishes. I still don't know how you stopped yourself from grounding me for the rest of my life."

She laughed. "You were nine. I was trying to teach you that trying counts. But yes—" she pressed a hand to her chest dramatically, "—I mourned those plates in silence that night."

I chuckled, shaking my head. For a moment, it was just the quiet clink of porcelain and water running over my hands.

"You know... trying isn't just for kids learning chores. Sometimes, it's what we do when something still matters, even if it scares us."

Ah, there it was. The talk. I was honestly impressed Mom had held out this long, but I had hoped I could at least get one night of sleep before we went there.

A foolish thought, apparently.

I let out a quiet sigh and resumed washing. "You mean my job?"

"I might be," she replied. "Or I might be talking about... other things."

I froze, the plate nearly slipping from my hand. She didn't say much, but I somehow still knew exactly what she was talking about, or who...

We hadn't talked about Emma in so long, deliberately so. But I knew Mom had loved her, and the hurt in her eyes the day she realized Emma hadn't been honest with us was something I still wasn't ready to replay.

Mom gave me a knowing look, and I felt that old familiar sensation of being seen right down to the bone.

"You're my boy, Jake," she said quietly. "I don't care how grown you are or how far life takes you. I know when something's eating at you, especially because that something is still unfinished."

I swallowed and put the plate down before I dropped it.

Mom dried her hands and leaned against the counter. I didn't have to look to know her eyes were on me.

Finally, she asked, "How is she, Jake?"

It was such a simple question, and yet, I stared at the now turned off faucet for too long before answering. "She's doing well... as far as I know."

My mom didn't say anything. I looked over and saw her raise one eyebrow, her eyes staying right on me.

I pulled off the gloves and sighed. "She has a job now. Helping girls in halfway programs through art. She's... really good at it. From what I've heard, she's making a real difference."

Mom's eyes softened, and as an art teacher herself, I knew she probably understood better than anyone.

"And how is she?" Mom pressed gently. "Not what she does. How is she?"

I ran a hand through my hair. "I don't know," I admitted. "I only know she's trying." There it was again... that word.

"But..." I hesitated, "I know she has a support system. And a stable job. She's probably doing fine." Probably. I hated that I didn't know for sure. That I didn't know how she was handling her new life, or what she felt when she was alone at night.

Mom nodded. "As I said, trying is a big thing," she said. "Sometimes it's the bravest thing."

I swallowed hard. Because I knew that too well. How hard Emma fought to get to that point. How many pieces she had to pick up on her own.

Mom paused, then smiled gently. "You know," she said, "I didn't spend much time with her... but time doesn't matter when you get to see real parts of a person."

I looked at her, a little frown forming on my forehead.

She lifted a hand, cutting me before I could say anything.

"I saw her," she continued. "Not everything, of course. But enough. The way she talked about art. The way she talked to me." Mom's smile softened into something a little sad. "The way she looked at you, Jake... I don't think she could fake that, even if she had tried."

I felt something tug behind my ribs. I looked away.

"And the way she acted around us?" Mom continued. "I understand it now. It was like she wasn't sure she belonged, but desperately hoped she did. I think she let herself believe it for a little while."

I swallowed hard. "And look how that turned out."

Mom's eyes warmed even more. "I can't understand everything she did. I don't pretend to. But I can understand fear... and loving someone so much that you don't know how to fit yourself into their world."

"And I know what you're thinking," she added. "But she's paid for what she's done, sweetheart. More than paid. And from what you're telling me, she's still trying to put good into the world. Trying to build something decent out of all that mess."

I felt something twist inside me, something I had been ignoring for a long time.

"And I think she started changing long before you found out the truth. She wanted to be better for you. Even if she didn't believe she deserved you. Even if she thought the future she wanted was impossible."

I opened my mouth, a half-formed version of it's over now, it doesn't make sense to bring up the past on my tongue, but she kept going, not giving me the space to hide behind it.

Mom stepped closer and wrapped her fingers around my forearm the way she did when I was a kid and pretending that scraping my knee didn't hurt.

"I know how angry you were. I know how badly she hurt you, and that hurt me, too, seeing you like that."

Her voice wavered for a moment, like she was choosing her words carefully. "But when the noise finally settled... sometimes I thought about her, too. About the kind of pain she must have lived with. How terrified she must have been. How alone."

My throat tightened. I knew all that, but hearing it come from my mother, who only spent a few days with her, hit like a punch in the gut. It made me wonder if I had been truly blind back then, too willing to see what I wanted instead of what was real.

"I'm not mad at her anymore," I finally said. "Not... not in the way I was. It's just... complicated."

I paused, staring at the sink, because I couldn't look at my mother when I said the next part. I closed my eyes and forced the words out. "I arrested her, Mom," I said quietly. "I put the cuffs on her. I brought her in. And she's been through hell since then because of choices we both made."

"Jake," she whispered, squeezing my arm. "You did your job. And you did it with integrity. She faced the consequences of her choices, not yours. You both suffered for it, but suffering doesn't erase love, and it doesn't mean you weren't right for each other."

I looked at her, and she smiled.

"It's just that you two were the right people for each other, but at the worst possible time."

The words landed deep. Too true, too simple, and somehow everything I had avoided putting into sentences for three years.

"But that was then," she went on. "Now? You're both rebuilding your lives, starting fresh. And nothing stands between you anymore, not even a badge."

I let out a breath. She wasn't wrong. There were nights in my apartment, after I had made the decision to resign, when a thought would creep in, one I din't try hard to push away.

What would happen if we ever met again with no secrets, no lies, no rules, no obligations between us?

Would it change anything?

Would it be enough for a second chance?

"You're punishing yourself," Mom spoke again, making me look at her. "For still loving her. For hurting her. For not being able to fix everything." Her eyes softened. "And Jake... you're punishing her, too."

I blinked, opening my mouth, but closed it again when I found nothing to say.

"You are doing that by keeping the door shut," Mom explained. "By assuming she doesn't want you in her life. By deciding for both of you that it's too complicated, too messy."

A knot formed in my chest. I had no defense. Not an honest one.

Mom leaned back against the counter, folding her arms, studying me with that look that always made me feel twelve again, too transparent.

"You said it yourself that she's trying. What makes you think she wouldn't want the chance to try with you, too?" she asked. "And she deserves the chance to decide if she wants to see you again. To decide if her feelings survived all that pain. And you deserve that choice too."

I swallowed hard. "I don't even know if she'd want to see me."

Mom stepped closer, squeezing my hand. "Sweetheart," she whispered, "a lifetime of what ifs will break you more than any heartbreak ever could."

I didn't move. Couldn't.

"You've spent years doing what was logical, what was right, what was expected," she added. "But look at what you did today... you followed your heart. You chose yourself." She smiled. "Maybe you should let that heart guide you one more time..."

I needed air, and more than that, I needed space to let the noise settle.

So I grabbed my keys, told Mom I would be back, and drove without thinking, letting the road choose for me.

By the time I stopped, the sky was already black, scattered with stars over Cayuga Lake. Just like that night, at the same lake, when everything had once felt so simple.

I stepped out of the car, the wind colder than I expected, carrying that faint scent of wet earth. The water rippled in slow, lazy waves, catching the moonlight like shards of glass.

I reached inside my jacket pocket and pulled out the sketch, her sketch, the one she had made of us sitting by this very lake. The edges had softened, worn from months of being handled, folded, unfolded. I had told myself I kept it because throwing away art felt wrong.

But that had never been the truth.

I sat on the hood and let the paper rest in my hands. I had also thought once about framing it and hanging it somewhere quiet. But it always felt... arrogant, or maybe delusional, to immortalize a moment that had collapsed so violently. So I kept it tucked away instead, hidden but never too far... just like her.

My throat tightened as the memory pulled itself forward. The rainstorm that came out of nowhere, the way she laughed when it soaked our hair. The way she had looked at me right before I kissed her, like she was memorizing the moment in case she never got another.

"I love you," we had whispered to each other that night. Under the stars. Under the rain. Under a weight that was already on its way to destroying us.

And now, looking back, I understood better... She had been so terrified of what lay ahead that she had imagined the world ending as a gentler fate than the one waiting for us.

Back then, I thought she was scared of commitment. Turns out, she was scared of a future with me because she didn't think she was allowed one.

I swallowed hard, eyes drifting back to the lake.

Now... there was nothing holding her back. Nothing holding me back either.

No badge. No rules. No lies hanging overhead like a guillotine.

Just two people who had broken each other and rebuilt themselves separately. And the question was whether there was anything left to rebuild together.

I let out a slow breath, watching it fog in the cold air.

Emma had found the courage to start over, to face everything she had done and still choose a life worth living, still choose hope.

Maybe the least I could do was to meet her halfway, to face her one more time.

Not to demand anything. Not to bandage an old wound that had already left too deep scars. Just... to finally face the truth I had never outgrown, and see if it lived in her, too.

I brushed my thumb over the faded lines of the drawing.

Yeah, one more time...