When I returned to the flat, Asher was sitting on a chair on the patio off of the living room. I needed to get ready for Mila, and the plans I’d made for us, but something about the way Asher was slumped in the chair made me pause.

He held something in his hands, something I couldn’t discern in the twilight. When I stepped out onto the patio, he didn’t turn, but dropped his foot from the chair it rested on.

He waved his hand across the seat beside him. “Sit, Ames.”

Not for the first time, I pushed down the feelings that surfaced seeing him like this—this big booming man, who’d nearly dislocated my shoulder the first time he’d shaken my hand. He was a shell of that man now, living in the shadow of his late wife.

I sat across from him and saw the thing he held in his hands was one of Rayna’s many scarves. He twisted it, knotted it, over and over.

“Charlotte wants to sell the studio.”

I nodded. “She tells me on a daily basis.”

He was quiet for a few moments, so quiet that I thought he’d actually fallen asleep. But he was deep in thought, twisting that scarf around his finger and then unraveling it.

“Perhaps it’s not an awful idea.”

My head snapped to face him. “You believe that?”

He sighed, this bear of a man, and I could tell this conversation was important to him when he took a sip of his tea before speaking. “She wants to be free. Spread her wings.”

“And under normal circumstances, that wouldn’t be cause for alarm. But she wants to spread her wings on another continent, alone.”

“That she does.”

“She’s young.” I worked to keep my voice level, not wanting to turn this into an argument.

Asher chuckled. “She’s twenty-three. That’s hardly an infant.”

“She’s young in ways that people take advantage of. And we’re not talking a visit. She wants to pop around the country, venture into Canada.”

Asher calmed me with his hand on my arm. “Who’s the parent here?”

I swallowed, willing myself to speak rationally. “With all due respect, Asher, of course you are. But I can’t help but worry for her.”

“I didn’t mean to imply I wouldn’t worry for her. In fact, all that worrying would likely send me into an early grave.” He laughed, but I hardened. It wasn’t something to laugh about to me.

“And how would she feel,” I began, in even tones, “if something—God forbid—happened and she was far away.”

He sighed again, and I pushed his tea toward him. I worried about his cough in the cool air, and the tea would help temper it.

“Ames, that’s the very risk of living. Something could happen in the next five seconds. Something could happen in the next five years. Having that ignorance is a gift. Entertaining fears is selfish; it wastes life.”

“I didn’t realize you’d be giving a sermon today.” I meant it sarcastically, but I knew my tone was off. “Sorry.”

“It is Wednesday. Rayna’s church met Wednesdays for prayer meetings.”

“Maybe that’s what Lotte needs.”

“Church?” Asher chuckled. “A church isn’t going to tell her what’s burning in her heart. She knows what she wants. And I’m inclined to give her the permission she’s respectively seeking.”

“Fine. If she really wants to go gallivanting off to the states, then fine. But she needn’t sell her studio to do so.”

“Oh, Ames.” Asher patted my arm. “How will she pay for it? Utilities, taxes?”

“I’ll pay for it. I’m going to sell the restaurant. She can keep the studio, and when she’s ready to come home, it’ll be here for her.”

He sipped his tea and settled the scarf on his lap. “You know, when Mal first came home with the look in her eyes—the same one I saw in her own mother’s eyes—I knew one thing for certain. She’d fallen in love. The uncertainties were many: with whom? Was he kind to her? Was he good, in the ways that mattered?” He turned his head to look at me.

“And then, after a while, she told me it was you. Of course, I’d already known who you were, and had observed your puppy love for my daughter from the start. But I didn’t know your character, except that you looked at my daughter like she was the one thing grounding you to this earth. It’s a scary thing, to watch your baby be loved like that by someone else.”

I closed my eyes, well aware of the kind of impression I must have made on him. It was enough to make me cringe.

“And so I told her to tell me about you—the things I didn’t already know myself. And the fact that she was so open, so willing to tell me all the good things about you, did a lot to assuage my concern. She told me that you made her laugh, that when that Johnny-Bobblecock—”

“Bobblecock?” I said on a chocked laugh.

Asher laughed with me. “Yes. Whatever his name was. The arse who slapped her lunch tray out of her hands in an effort to gain her attention.”

It was coming back to me then. “Ah, yes, I think he’s on his third divorce now.”

“Shocking. Anyway. She told me that she sat with you, lunchless, and you took pity on her and gave her your milk and sandwich.”

“Yes, well, like you said, I was halfway in love with her until I fell all the way into it.”

“Right. And yes, what you did for her was a good thing, an honorable thing. And it made me like you more. But it was what she told me next that sealed the deal for me.”

I waited in the silence, the only noise the cars on the street below us. After what felt like several minutes, he continued.

“She felt awful for taking most of your lunch, and the next day she sought to buy an extra tray for you, so you could eat your fill two-fold. But when she brought you the tray, she told me you did something unusual. You picked up the tray you’d purchased, all the food still uneaten, and carried it to a table of children she said were from the poor end of Camden.”

“Which end is that?” It was well known that Camden had the worst child poverty rates.

“That’s fair. But stop interrupting my story.”

I acquiesced to his request, and propped my feet up on the railing.

“You gave the tray you’d purchased to kids you weren’t friends with. But they were in need, and you fulfilled their need. And, she told me, that you took the extra milk and pizza off of the tray she’d purchased for you and gave that up too.”

“I had food at home.”

“You’re interrupting me again, and I’m in the middle of a good speech.”

I mimicked zipping my lips and sat back, letting him finish.

“Did I ever tell you how I met Rayna?”

“Am I allowed to speak now?”

He chuckled. “You can nod or shake your head.”

I shook my head.

“She came to the restaurant I worked at and purchased sixteen pizzas. I stared at her, this small waif of a woman—much like my Lotte is now—and asked her where she was going to put it all. She said, ‘In hungry bellies.’ She had two wealthy parents, and used her pocket money to buy food for people who needed it. You’re like her.”

“I don’t think sharing my lunch is quite on the same level.”

“But it is. You’re comparing amounts and not the act behind them. You did what you could, within your means. When she told me that story, about how you did it every single day, how you inspired her to use a bit of her spending money doing the same, I had no fear. If you could do such an act of kindness for complete strangers, inspire a similar act in my child, I could only think of the good you’d do for people you loved. Like my Mahlon.”

“I loved her,” I said simply.

“And you love Lotte. Not in the same way, but in a way that means, for you, sacrifice. It’s honorable, Ames, that you would be willing to sacrifice the restaurant—the dream you and Mal shared—in order to make sure Lotte could keep her studio. Even if she never returned to it.”

I swallowed. “The restaurant needs work, a lot of work. I don’t have the time to devote to it, nor the funds.”

“You don’t have the time because you’ve sacrificed your freedom to take over the pub for me.” Asher twisted his chair so he faced me, and even in the dark, I could see the feeling in his eyes. “When Rayna died, when Mal died, I fell apart. You didn’t get that luxury. You kept us three afloat, shouldering the burden of the pub and your own grief. We didn’t give you the space to hurt, to feel.” He patted my arm again and then gripped it firmly, desperately. “I know the blood running through these veins isn’t of my family—but you couldn’t be more my son than if you were born of my own flesh. There’s no son-in-law—you are my son. You’ve done more for me than anyone should. And I don’t want to see you lose anything else.”

I blinked rapidly. I’d loved this family for ten years, loved Asher like he was my father, Lotte like she was my sister. And while I’d known Asher loved me, hearing it like this, right now, was enough to make my eyes burn. “I’m not losing anything,” I assured him.

“Maybe it doesn’t seem that way, but trust me—love doesn’t always require sacrifice. Especially not the kinds of sacrifices you’ve made.” He let go of my arm. “Just … think about what I’ve said.”

I promised I would, and got him another cup of tea. My thoughts were swirling, but after a quick glance at the clock, I realized I had just an hour before Mila would be arriving.

My body practically hummed with excitement. Tonight was going to be special—for her, and for me. She was special. Probably the most special thing I’d come across in years.

It didn’t do well to think like that for too long. Mila would be leaving soon, a thought I didn’t let in my head too often because each time I did, the longer this went on, I felt this heavy, unsettling pressure. I wasn’t ready to let go, but I’d need to be. Soon.