Daniel nodded. He crouched beside the stroller. Eli looked at him with the unfocused seriousness of infancy, dark-tufted, fair, a hand batting at nothing. Daniel's voice broke on the simplest word.
"Hey, buddy."
He lifted his son with a care that suggested he understood, finally, that bodies this small could be dropped by more than gravity — by absence, by secrets, by men who thought love could be scheduled after convenience. Eli settled against Daniel's chest. Ava watched without smiling. The Spanish moss moved in a breeze that smelled of cut grass and distant rain.
They sat on a bench. Daniel asked about sleep schedules, about formula versus nursing, about the rented room and whether Ava needed help with rent beyond what he already sent. Ava answered in facts. She did not offer warmth. Warmth, she had decided, would be earned in months, not purchased with diapers in a park.
"Madison's lawyer called me," Ava said eventually. "Not to threaten. To ask whether I intended to pursue anything related to the wedding — damages, publicity, anything. I said no. I said my only interest was Eli. She asked me to put that in writing. I will."
Daniel stared at the path where joggers passed and tourists photographed the fountain. "She deserves peace."
"So does Eli," Ava said. "Peace looks like a father who shows up on time and tells the truth even when it costs him the life he preferred."
Daniel kissed Eli's hair. "I'm going to petition for a formal parenting plan. Joint legal custody. Graduated visitation. Whatever a judge thinks is fair given that I spent his first months as a rumor."