“She was away.”
“Then Nina.”
“Yes.”
“Or Aunt Helena.”
“Yes.”
Each answer stripped away another excuse.
Poppy was not accusing him.
She was solving a problem that seemed obvious to an eight-year-old.
There were people.
There were phones.
He was her father.
Why had nobody connected those things?
Cassian sat with the answer he could actually give.
“I should have tried another way. I’m sorry I didn’t.”
His daughter stared at him.
Then she began to cry.
Not loudly.
She folded forward as though she wanted to keep it contained.
He moved beside her.
“Can I hold you?”
She nodded.
He wrapped his arms around her.
Poppy pressed her face into his shirt.
For a while, she did not speak.
Then she whispered, “I thought wanting you was the bad bit.”
Cassian closed his eyes.
“No, sweetheart.”
He held her more carefully.
“That was never the bad bit.”
Miriam brought dinner on a tray.
Poppy wanted pasta.
Plain.
No discussion about vegetables.
Cassian agreed.
While his daughter ate, he asked whether she wanted him to stay or whether she preferred a few minutes with Miriam.
“Stay.”
So he stayed.
She took three bites before asking whether she had ruined the dinner.
“No.”
“Everyone went home.”
“Because the adults needed to make space for something important.”
“Me?”
“Yes.”
Poppy considered that.
Then she looked worried.
“But they came all this way.”
He knew how easily this could turn into another lesson about being inconvenient.
“They can manage a changed evening.”
She ate another bite.
