Two weeks later, Sophie had her first supervised visit with Elena.
A family therapist named Dr. Miriam Cole used a small office filled with art supplies, board games, and furniture deliberately designed to look less like furniture adults used while discussing trauma.
Jack sat in the waiting room.
He hated every second.
Not because he thought Elena would hurt Sophie.
Because for seven years, Jack had been everything.
Breakfast.
School drop-off.
Fevers.
Homework.
Nightmares.
Birthdays.
Braided hair badly enough that Sophie eventually learned to do it herself.
Now another person had entered the equation with a biological claim Jack could never replicate because he had never needed to.
Fear was ugly when he admitted it.
He feared losing part of her.
The office door opened after forty minutes.
Sophie came out carrying a small wooden box.
Jack stood.
“How was it?”
She shrugged.
“Fine.”
The universal child answer.
Elena appeared behind her.
Her eyes were red.
But she smiled.
Sophie looked at Jack.
“She remembers the song.”
His stomach tightened.
“What song?”
Elena answered softly.
“The moon song.”
Jack knew.
A nonsense lullaby they invented when Sophie was three months old because none of the standard ones stopped her crying.
Jack had forgotten Elena knew it.
Sophie opened the wooden box.
Inside were seven folded birthday cards.
Not the letters intercepted by Keane.
Copies Elena had made for herself.
“I can keep them.”
Jack nodded.
“That’s good.”
Sophie looked at Elena.
“Next week?”
Elena’s face changed.
“Only if you want.”
Sophie rolled her eyes.
“I asked.”
Elena laughed.
“Yes.”
Sophie took Jack’s hand.
They walked toward the exit.
Then Sophie stopped.
Turned.
Elena waited.
Sophie crossed the distance and hugged her.
Only for two seconds.
Then stepped back.
Elena did not chase the moment.
She simply whispered, “Thank you.”
In the parking lot, Jack cried behind his sunglasses.
Sophie pretended not to notice.
That helped.
The visits continued.
Once a week.
Then twice.
Elena learned Sophie hated tomatoes, loved space documentaries, and believed every dog deserved to be greeted individually.
Sophie learned Elena drank tea instead of coffee, could draw surprisingly well, and had spent seven years living under three different surnames.
“Were you a spy?”
Sophie asked.
“No.”
“Sounds like spying.”
“It was much more boring.”
“Did you have secret codes?”
“Sometimes.”
Sophie looked impressed.
Jack was less impressed.
He still struggled with Elena.
The facts explained her absence.
They did not erase it.
Some nights he replayed everything she could have done differently.
Could she have demanded contact?
Escaped protection?
Found another agent?
Called anonymously?
Then he hated himself because he knew the risk had been real.
Then he became angry again because Sophie had paid the price anyway.
Elena never told him he had no right to be angry.
That mattered.
One evening she came to return Sophie’s jacket.
Jack stood in the garage working on an engine.
She stopped at the doorway.
“Can I come in?”
The question itself hurt.
Once, this garage had been hers too.
“Yeah.”
She entered.
Placed the jacket on the stool.
Jack kept working.
Elena looked around.
“The red cabinet is still crooked.”
Jack glanced over.