Forgiveness, Trust & Forever

Hero

Getting Eleanora out of Mum and Dad's house was worse than getting in.
At least before, the photographers had been guessing.
Now they knew.
They had seen me go inside empty-handed and they were waiting for me to come back out with proof. Not a comment. Not a denial. Not some half-arsed statement my director could twist into damage control.
Proof.
My daughter.
I stood in the narrow hallway with Eleanora tucked against my chest, her little hand gripping the collar of my shirt like she could feel every ugly thing waiting outside and trusted me to keep it away.
That trust nearly put me on my knees.
Dad stood by the front window, peering through the curtain with his jaw clenched. Mum was in the kitchen, packing snacks into Eleanora's changing bag like she could hold off the entire press with rice cakes and spare socks.
Emily stood near the stairs.
Not close.
Not far.
Just there.
Her hair was still damp from the rain, curling around her face. The dress from last night had dried in places and wrinkled in others, leaving her looking like the kind of mistake a man remembered for the rest of his life. She had her arms folded tightly across her stomach, eyes fixed on Eleanora but not quite landing on her.
Almost like looking directly at her hurt.
Or like she was afraid Eleanora would look back.
"They're still out there," Dad said.
I nodded.
"Police said they can't move them unless they block the road or trespass."
"Course they can't."
Dad turned from the window. "They're shouting questions at the neighbours now."
Mum appeared in the kitchen doorway, face tight with worry. "Mrs Jenkins from number thirty-two just called to ask if she should bring the bins in because there's a man sitting on one."
Despite everything, Emily let out a tiny, startled laugh.
It disappeared almost immediately.
I looked at her before I could stop myself.
She looked back.
For one second, something old flickered between us. A memory of her sitting cross-legged on my parents' kitchen counter at nineteen, laughing into a cup of tea while Mum pretended not to adore her and Dad pretended not to notice me staring.
Then Eleanora shifted in my arms.
Emily looked away.
The warmth died.
Anna came through the front door without knocking, rain on her coat and murder in her eyes.
"Right," she said, shutting it quickly behind her. "I've moved the car two streets over."
Dad frowned. "How are they supposed to get there with a baby?"
"Carefully," Anna said. "Jen's outside with a decoy car. Your agent is making enough noise at the front to draw cameras that way, and I've asked a neighbour with side access if we can cut through their garden."
Mum blinked. "Which neighbour?"
"The one with the angry little dog."
Dad snorted. "Mr Collins?"
"He likes me now," Anna said.
Emily arched a brow. "Does he?"
"No, but he dislikes photographers more than me, so it works."
Eleanora lifted her head from my shoulder at the sound of Anna's voice, blinking sleepily.
Anna's face softened instantly.
"Hello, tiny chaos."
Eleanora gave a tired little babble and tucked her face back into my neck.
I kissed her temple. "We're going in the car, okay, baby?"
She didn't understand the words, not really.
But she understood my voice.
Her fingers curled tighter into my shirt.
Emily watched the movement like it hurt.
Anna cleared her throat. "We need to move now."
Mum stepped closer and touched Eleanora's back. "You be good for Daddy."
Eleanora leaned away from me just enough to reach for Mum.
Mum took her for one last hug, pressing her face into Eleanora's curls with her eyes closed.
When she handed her back, Mum looked at me.
"Call me when you're in."
"I will."
Her gaze moved to Emily.
Emily stiffened, already expecting something sharp.
Mum surprised us both by reaching for her hand.
"Take something of mine to wear," she said quietly. "You're freezing."
Emily looked down at their joined hands.
"I'm fine."
"You're not."
Emily's mouth opened.
Then closed.
Mum squeezed her fingers once and disappeared upstairs before Emily could argue.
The silence she left behind was unbearable.
Dad filled it by coughing awkwardly and picking up the travel cot.
"I'll carry this out."
"No, Dad," I said.
"You've got the baby."
"I've got it."
"You've got enough," he replied, and the softness in his voice nearly finished me.
Emily looked at him then.
Dad had never been the overly emotional type, but he had always loved Emily in his own quiet way. Making sure there was oat milk in the fridge when she went through that phase. Pretending not to notice when she stayed over before anyone officially knew she stayed over.
He didn't know how to speak to her now.
None of us did.
Mum came back with a grey jumper folded over her arm.
She held it out to Emily.
Emily stared at it like accepting it meant accepting everything else.
Then she took it.
"Thank you," she whispered.
Mum nodded.
That was all.
It was enough.
We moved through the kitchen and out the back door.
Rain slicked the tiny patio. The bins smelled like damp cardboard and old coffee grounds. Mr Collins stood at his garden gate in a wax jacket, holding a furious terrier under one arm.
"This is ridiculous," he muttered as we approached.
"I know," Anna said brightly. "Thank you."
"I'm not doing it for you."
"Noted."
The terrier barked at me.
Eleanora startled, then made a small surprised noise against my shoulder, her body going rigid.
"I've got you," I whispered, rubbing her back. "It's okay."
Emily's eyes dropped to my hand moving over Eleanora's back.
For half a second, her mouth softened.
Then a camera clicked somewhere beyond the gardens.
Anna swore.
"Move."
We did.
Through Mr Collins' narrow back path, past wet hedges, over uneven paving stones, out onto a side street where Jen was waiting in a black car with the engine running.
No underground parking.
No magical escape.
Just a car half-pulled onto double yellows, hazard lights flashing, and Jen leaning out the window shouting, "Get in, get in, get in."
Dad loaded the travel cot into the boot while Anna scanned the road.
I strapped Eleanora into the car seat with shaking hands.
She whined the second I leaned away from her, both tiny arms lifting towards me.
My chest split.
"I know, baby. I know."
Her face crumpled.
"Da," she whimpered.
Emily froze beside the open car door.
I looked at her.
Then back at Eleanora.
That sound - barely a word, more breath than speech - still had the power to undo me.
"I'm right here," I whispered, brushing my thumb over her cheek. "I'm not going anywhere."
Emily slid into the seat beside her without saying anything.
Not the front.
Not away from her.
Beside her.
I noticed.
So did Anna.
So, I think, did Emily.
She stared straight ahead like she hadn't just made a choice.
I got in on Eleanora's other side.
The door slammed.
Jen pulled away before I had even clipped my own belt.
We made it halfway down the road before the first photographer spotted us.
"There," Anna snapped from the front passenger seat.
A man lifted his camera.
Jen accelerated.
"Jen," I warned.
"I am driving within legal limits," she said tightly.
"You're doing forty in a twenty."
"Then the legal limits are emotionally unsupportive."
Emily actually laughed.
Soft.
Unwilling.
But there.
I looked at her.
She immediately wiped the expression away.
Eleanora looked between us, her wet eyes wide and confused, then let out a hiccuping little sound.
Not laughter.
Not speech.
Just baby noise.
But it was enough to make the car feel less like a funeral procession for three seconds.
My phone, which I had switched back on for Mum, began vibrating again.
Call after call.
Message after message.
I ignored Jo.
Ignored my director.
Ignored my agent.
Ignored Ava.
The unknown number sent one new message.
Bad choice.
No photo this time.
Just those two words.
Emily saw it because she was watching me.
"Is it them?"
I nodded.
Her gaze dropped to Eleanora.
Our daughter was busy clutching her rabbit in one hand and blinking heavily, tears still caught on her lashes.
Completely innocent.
Completely unaware.
Emily's face twisted again.
"Why would anyone do this to her?" she whispered.
I looked at her.
"To hurt me."
Her eyes lifted.
There was no judgement in them.
Only grim understanding.
"Or me," she said.
I didn't answer.
Because that possibility had already started forming in my head, ugly and familiar.
Ava's message had come too quickly.
Jo's face had looked too guilty.
The article knew about court.
About adoption.
About Winchester.
About Jo.
About details that belonged to different corners of my life.
Someone had stitched them together.
Someone close enough to touch all the threads.
"Do you think Hayden-" I started.
"No."
"You didn't let me finish."
"You didn't have to." Emily's voice hardened. "Hayden can be jealous. He can be loud. He can be a prick when he feels threatened. But he wouldn't sell Eleanora."
It was the first time she had said our daughter's name that morning.
Cleanly.
No flinch.
No correction.
Just Eleanora.
The sound moved through me.
Emily realised at the same time I did.
She looked away fast.
I let her.
"Then who?" Anna asked from the front.
I said nothing.
Emily's eyes came back to me.
She read my silence.
"Ava."
Eleanora gave a soft babble around her rabbit.
The car seemed to shrink around the name.
Anna twisted in her seat. "Your Ava?"
"She's not my Ava," I said.
Emily's laugh was sharp. "Funny. She always thought she was."
I couldn't argue with that.
Jen glanced at us through the rear-view mirror. "Would Ava know about the court details?"
"Not from me."
Emily's eyes narrowed. "Are you sure?"
I looked at her. "Yes."
"Because you were very angry after court."
"Not with Ava."
"No, with me." Her voice dropped. "And angry people talk."
"I didn't tell her."
Emily studied my face for a long second.
Then she nodded.
The fact that she believed me should not have mattered as much as it did.
"What about Jo?" Anna asked.
I went still.
Emily didn't.
She was already looking at me.
Waiting.
"You think Jo did this?" Jen asked, startled.
"No," I said automatically.
Emily's jaw tightened.
"I don't know," I corrected.
It cost me to say it.
Not because I loved Jo.
I didn't.
But because Jo was part of my daily life. Work. Interviews. Long filming days. Shared exhaustion. She had been kind to me when I was drowning in new fatherhood and court dates and the constant pressure to be someone fans could project onto.
I had trusted her.
Maybe not with my heart.
But with enough.
"She wants you," Emily said quietly.
I looked at her.
There was no jealousy in her tone.
That almost made it worse.
It was just fact.
"She wants the version of me that doesn't come with you," I replied.
Emily's face changed.
I hadn't meant to say it like that.
Raw.
Honest.
But there it was.
She looked down at her hands.
Eleanora dropped her rabbit.
This time it landed against Emily's shoe.
Emily stared at it.
I waited.
So did Anna.
So did Jen.
Even the car felt like it was waiting.
Eleanora made a frustrated little whine and reached one hand towards the toy.
Emily bent slowly and picked it up.
Her fingers trembled as she held it out.
Eleanora took it from her without hesitation.
Their fingers brushed.
Barely.
Emily blinked.
Eleanora tucked the rabbit under her chin and relaxed again, as though the moment had been nothing.
No rejection.
No miracle.
Just a baby receiving comfort from the woman who gave birth to her without knowing how much that woman was falling apart over it.
Emily stared out the window after.
I pretended not to see.
Outside, the closer we got to the flat, the quieter the streets became.
Not empty.
London was never empty.
But different.
A nervous kind of quiet sat over everything. Cafés with chairs stacked inside. People moving quickly with bags clutched close. A chemist with a handwritten sign in the window saying no masks, no sanitiser. A bus rolling past with only three people on it.
The virus was no longer just background news.
It was in the air.
In the distance between people.
In the way Jen wiped her hands on a sanitiser wipe every time she touched her phone.
Anna ended another call and turned back to me.
"Government's expected to tighten restrictions again."
"Today?"
"Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow. Nobody knows."
Emily looked out the window.
"If lockdown happens..."
She didn't finish.
She didn't need to.
If lockdown happened and we were inside the flat together, this was not one night anymore. It was not one mistake we could dress over and walk away from.
It would be days.
Weeks.
Maybe longer.
Hero, Emily, and Eleanora under one roof.
A family in legal terms.
A disaster in emotional ones.
I looked at Eleanora.
She was drifting now, rabbit tucked under her chin, one little foot twitching gently in her sleep.
She had no idea the world was rearranging itself around her.
I reached over and stroked a curl away from her forehead.
Her lashes fluttered.
Emily watched my hand.
Her expression was unreadable.
Then we turned onto the road where the flat sat back behind the tree lined road.
No underground car park.
No private security.
Just the security of the gates we insisted on fixing when we moved in.
Emily leaned forward.
"No one's outside."
"Good," Anna said.
Jen slowed the car.
"We need to be quick anyway."
I looked at Emily. "Keys?"
Her face tightened.
Of course.
Even that meant something.
The keys to our old life were in her bag.
She pulled them out after a moment, silver and familiar, my old key still on the ring even though she had once told me she threw it away.
I saw it.
She saw me see it.
Her cheeks flushed.
"I forgot it was there."
I didn't call her a liar.
I was learning.
Jen stopped at the end of the driveway.
Anna got out first, scanning back at the the street as the gates closed. "Clear."
I unbuckled Eleanora.
She stirred as I lifted her, making a sleepy sound against my neck.
"I've got you," I murmured.
Emily opened the front door.
Her hand shook when she pushed it.
My chest tightened.
I hadn't been here in over a year.
Not properly.
Not since Emily left me off the bieth certificate.
One night where I sat outside in my car for twenty minutes and drove away because I saw Hayden's coat through the window.
But I had not stepped inside.
Not into the flat.
Not into the place where I had once thought my whole life would start.
We climbed the stairs in silence.
The travel cot banged against the wall as I carried it in one hand and Eleanora in the other.
Emily reached the top of the stairs
Then stopped.
Her shoulders lifted with one breath.
Then another.
I waited behind her.
I could have pushed.
I didn't.
Finally, she stepped forward.
The flat was exactly the same and completely different.
Same wooden floors.
Same kitchen.
Same living room windows wrapping around the building.
But where there used to be photos of us, there was art I didn't recognise. Where my books used to sit, there were plants. The sofa was new. The walls were lighter. Cleaner. Like she had painted over the life we ruined and hoped the ghosts would stop showing through.
Then I saw one photograph on the shelf near the window.
Half hidden behind a vase.
Me and Emily at eighteen.
Blurry.
Sunburnt.
Laughing at something outside the frame.
I stared at it too long.
Emily noticed.
"I keep meaning to throw that out."
"Sure."
Her eyes cut to mine.
I let it go.
Eleanora lifted her head from my shoulder, taking in the room with sleepy, curious eyes.
She made a small noise and pressed her cheek back against me.
I kissed her hair.
"Home for now," I whispered.
Emily looked at me.
"For now," she repeated.
I nodded.
"For now."
Anna and Jen came up behind us with the bags.
Anna set them down and immediately moved to the window.
Jen placed the travel cot against the wall.
"This is good," Anna said. "Low profile. No one followed us that I could see."
Emily laughed quietly. "You make my flat sound like a safe house."
Anna glanced around. "At the moment, it kind of is."
My phone buzzed.
Mum.
Are you in?
I replied quickly.
Yes. She's safe. I'll call soon.
Then I switched it to silent.
Not off.
I couldn't.
Not with threats coming in.
But silent.
Emily watched me.
"What now?"
I looked around the flat.
At the bags.
At Eleanora.
At Emily's life.
At the photograph she had not thrown away.
"Now we set up the cot."
"That's your plan?"
"For the next ten minutes, yes."
Something like disbelief crossed her face.
Then maybe gratitude.
Because the truth was too big.
The scandal too big.
The betrayal waiting in the shadows too big.
The pandemic pressing closer outside too big.
So I made the next thing small.
Cot.
Bottle.
Nap.
Survive.
Emily nodded once.
"Fine."
Anna's phone rang. She looked at the screen and grimaced.
"Director."
"Don't answer," I said.
"I wasn't planning to." She silenced it. "But he'll keep pushing."
"Let him."
Jen looked up from her laptop. "Legal needs the threatening messages."
I handed her my phone.
Emily stiffened. "All of them?"
Jen looked between us. "Yes."
The hotel ones were there.
The unknown threats.
Ava's message.
Jo's missed calls.
Everything.
Emily crossed her arms. "What about the article source?"
"I'm looking," Jen said. "But it'll take time."
Anna glanced at me.
She was thinking the same thing I was.
Ava.
Jo.
Or both.
Emily moved into the kitchen without a word.
Cupboards open.
Then close.
Then open again.
Eleanora squirmed sleepily in my arms.
I lowered her carefully onto the rug for a moment while I opened the travel cot.
The second her feet touched the floor, she reached for my leg and let out a tired little whine.
New place.
Too much day.
Too many feelings.
"I know," I murmured. "It's okay."
Emily's eyes dropped to Eleanora's small hand gripping my trouser leg.
For half a second, her mouth softened.
Then she placed a glass of water on the coffee table and stepped back.
"There's nothing here for her," she said.
Her voice was quiet.
Ashamed.
I looked up.
"What?"
"No toys. No bowls. No blankets. No little plastic cups." She swallowed. "I never bought anything."
I picked Eleanora up again before her whine became a cry.
"Why would you?"
Emily's eyes flashed.
Not angry.
Defensive.
"Because mothers do."
The room went still.
Anna and Jen suddenly became very interested in the bags.
I stood slowly.
"Emily."
She shook her head. "Don't. I know what I am."
"No, you don't."
Her laugh was brittle. "I'm pretty sure the internet is going to tell me all day."
I stepped closer.
Not too close.
Eleanora rested her head against my shoulder, sleepy again.
"She doesn't need plastic cups from you today."
Emily stared at our daughter.
"What does she need?"
"Quiet."
Emily nodded.
"And you?" she asked before she could stop herself.
The question hit me square in the chest.
I looked at her.
She regretted it immediately.
But I answered anyway.
"I need you not to disappear."
Her eyes shone.
"I can't promise that."
"I know."
She looked down.
My phone buzzed in Jen's hand.
Her face changed.
"What?" I asked.
Jen looked up slowly.
"There's another message."
I crossed the room.
Emily followed before she could pretend she didn't care.
Jen held the phone out.
Unknown number.
Nice flat.
Underneath it was a photo.
Not of Eleanora.
Not of Mum's.
Not of the hotel.
The photo was of the front of Emily's flat.
Taken from the gates at the end of the driveway.
Seconds ago.
Emily went white.
Anna was already at the window.
I pulled Eleanora tighter against me and turned away from the glass.
"Anna?"
She looked down at the street.
Her jaw clenched.
"We were followed."
Emily grabbed the edge of the sofa like her legs had weakened.
Outside, a car door slammed.
Then another.
Then the first shout rose up from the street.
"Hero!"
Eleanora startled awake in my arms.
Her little face crumpled.
Emily's head snapped towards her.
For one second, she did nothing.
Then she moved.
Not thinking.
Not hesitating.
Just moved.
She stepped to the window and yanked the curtains shut hard enough that the rail rattled.
Then she turned back to me, eyes blazing.
"Get her away from the window."
I was already moving.
Eleanora started crying again, frightened by the noise, by the day, by all of us.
Emily stood in the middle of the living room, breathing hard, one hand still gripping the curtain.
And there it was again.
That thing she swore she did not have.
That instinct.
Buried, bruised, unwanted.
But alive.
Anna locked the door.
Jen grabbed her phone.
My daughter cried into my neck.
And Emily, shaking from head to toe, stood between the window and Eleanora like she would fight the whole street before she let them see her.
For the first time all day, I did not look away from what that meant.
Neither did she.