June was eating her porridge and listening with complete seriousness.
"They know about you," I said.
He went very quiet.
"I never told them you didn't want them," I said.
"I told them their father didn't know about them yet.
That we were working on fixing a mistake." I paused.
"I didn't want them to carry that."
A long silence.
When he spoke, his voice was unsteady in a way I had never heard from Julian Sterling in ten years of knowing him.
"Thank you," he said.
"Don't thank me.
It was for them, not for you."
"I know." A breath.
"I know that."
I watched Lily reach across and steal June's spoon.
June looked at the empty space where her spoon had been, then looked at Lily, then picked up her fork and continued eating without comment.
"Sunday afternoon," I said.
"After the depositions are done.
There's a park near the hotel.
Bring nothing — no security, no assistant, no gifts.
Just come."
"Okay."
"And Julian — if they don't want to talk to you, we leave.
No pressure.
No scene."
"Of course."
"And if June decides she doesn't like you on sight, which is entirely possible because she's very particular about people, you accept that gracefully."
Something shifted in his voice.
Almost — almost — a sound that wasn't quite a laugh but lived near one.
"Understood."
I went back into the kitchen.
Rose handed me the spoon without being asked.
The porridge had not stuck.
"Who was that?" Lily asked.
"Someone we're going to meet tomorrow," I said.
Rose looked up at me with her careful eyes.
"The someone from the airport?"
"Yes."
She considered this.
"He looked scared," she said.
"He was," I said.
"Of us?"
I thought about Julian's face on that pavement.
The shaking hands.
The hollow rasp of *whose children are these.*
"A little bit," I said.
"Yes."
Rose nodded as if this was reasonable.
Then she went back to her porridge.
June pointed at me with her fork.
"I want more."
I gave her more.
The depositions finished at half past two.
Patricia Osei's statement was precise, complete, and devastating.
Marcus Hale's voluntary account, delivered that morning, had covered the technical mechanics of the tablet breach in enough detail that Diane's forensic expert said it would save them three weeks of reconstruction work.
Richard Ashby's attorney had called at noon to say his client wished to provide a supplementary statement.
Diane had accepted.
By three o'clock, Julian was standing at the entrance to the park.
He had done what I asked.
No security.
No assistant.
He was wearing a dark coat and had his hands in his pockets, and he looked like a man who had not slept particularly well in several days, which was accurate.
The girls saw him before he saw us.
Lily stopped walking.
"That's him."
"Yes," I said.
June looked at him with the focused, assessing expression she used on new foods and unfamiliar dogs.
Rose said nothing.
We walked toward him.
He saw us when we were about twenty feet away and went very still — the same stillness as the airport, but different in quality.
At the airport it had been shock.
This was something else.
Closer to held breath.
"Hello," he said, when we reached him.
He looked at all three of them and then, carefully, crouched down to their level.
"I'm Julian."
Lily said, "We know.
You were at the airport.
You looked like you were going to be sick."
Julian blinked.
"I — yes.
I suppose I did."
"Mommy says you didn't know about us," Lily continued.
"That's right.
I didn't."
"That's sad," Lily said, with the uncomplicated directness of a child who has not yet learned to soften things.
"It is," Julian said.
"Very sad."
June stepped forward and studied his face from approximately six inches away.
Julian held very still under the examination.
"You have the same nose as me," June announced.
"I think you might be right," he said.
"Mine is better," she said, and stepped back.
Something broke open in Julian's face — quiet and sudden, like a window giving way — and he pressed his lips together and looked down at the ground for a moment.
Rose had not spoken.
She stood slightly apart, watching.
Julian looked at her.
"You don't have to say anything," he said.
"I know this is strange."
"It's not strange," Rose said.
"We knew this was going to happen eventually.
I just wanted to see what you were like first."
"And?" Julian asked.
Rose considered him for a long moment with those careful eyes.
"You seem sorry," she said.
"Not just because you got caught.
Actually sorry."
Julian's jaw moved.
"I am," he said.
"Actually sorry."
Rose nodded once.
"Okay," she said.
And walked to the nearest bench and sat down, as if the matter was settled.
We walked through the park for an hour.
Lily talked continuously.
June collected three interesting stones and presented one to Julian, who accepted it with complete seriousness and put it in his coat pocket.
Rose walked beside me and occasionally corrected Lily's facts.
At one point Julian fell into step beside me while the girls ran ahead toward a fountain.
"The settlement terms," he said quietly.
"Whatever Diane presents next week — I've instructed Geoffrey not to counter.
Whatever you've asked for, it's yours."
"I know," I said.
He glanced at me.
"Diane told me this morning," I said.
"I appreciated it."
We walked a few steps in silence.
"Clara." He stopped.
I stopped beside him.
The girls were at the fountain now, June already trying to put her hand in the water.
"I know there's no version of an apology that covers what happened.
I know I can't ask for anything.
But I want you to know — whatever you decide about the future.
Whatever the girls decide.
I'll follow their lead.
All of it, at whatever pace they need.
I'm not going anywhere."
I looked at him.
Four years ago I had stood in a kitchen while rain hit the windows and watched this man decide I was a villain because it was easier than asking better questions.
I had sat on a bathroom floor in Portland with a positive test in my hand and understood, completely and finally, that I was alone.
I had spent four years building something solid and quiet and mine, with three small people who had his jawline and my stubbornness and their own entirely distinct personalities that belonged to no one but themselves.