Chapter 2

“Daddy, what does ‘scaf-fold’ mean?” Maya asked around a mouthful of crust.

Nate sighed, scraping the blackened edge of the sandwich over the sink. “It’s... a frame you put around a building while you’re building it, bug. To keep the walls from falling over.”

“Miss Holloway said our brains are like buildings.” Maya nodded solemnly, licking butter from her knuckles. “And if our frames are crooked, the whole roof caves in and squirrels eat the wallpaper.”

Nate rubbed his face with a calloused palm. “She really has a way with words, doesn't she?”

“She smells like lavender,” Maya said simply. “And she has a purple pen that looks like magic.”

“That magic pen is the bane of my existence, sweetheart.”

By eight-thirty, Maya was tucked beneath her dinosaur duvet, her small face slack in sleep, one thumb tucked near her lips. Nate stood in the doorway of her room for a long five minutes, watching the steady rise and fall of her chest, listening to the small whistle of her breath. This was the hour when the house grew too large. The silence in the old farmhouse wasn't peaceful; it was heavy, like water pressure at the bottom of a lake.

Nate walked down the hall to the small, wood-paneled living room. He didn’t turn on the television. Instead, he kicked off his steel-toed boots, sank into the worn leather armchair Sarah had picked out at a flea market seven years ago, and pulled his phone from his pocket.

The *Hearthside* badge showed three unread messages.

He opened the thread with BlueSky404.

**BlueSky404:** *Phonetic scaffolding? Good lord. Sounds like she’s trying to prep a five-year-old for the bar exam.*

**BlueSky404:** *Don’t let her get in your head, Grease. Teachers who build walls out of curriculum guidelines are usually just terrified of what happens if they let the room get messy. Control is a shield.*

**BlueSky404:** *Are you okay, though? Truly? You sounded frayed earlier.*

Nate stared at the screen, the blue light washing over his tired eyes. He didn't know where she lived. He didn't know her real name, what she looked like, or what kind of music she listened to while making dinner. Over the past five months, they had exchanged hundreds of messages, trading confessions they couldn't give to people in their everyday lives. He knew she worked in education—some administrative or instructional role she described as “mentally exhausting and emotionally bankrupting.” He knew she had suffered a loss that left her feeling like an imposter among ordinary, happy people. And he knew that whenever she wrote to him, the hollow ache in his chest subsided just enough for him to draw a clean breath.

Nate leaned his head back against the worn leather and began typing.

**GreaseMonkeyDad:** *I feel like a fraud, Blue. Every single day.*

He paused, staring at the words. Then, because the anonymity of the screen was the only place he could take off his armor, he kept going.

**GreaseMonkeyDad:** *I walked into that classroom smelling like WD-40 and brake fluid. All the other parents—these neat, organized couples with matching planners and organic snacks—they look at the teacher and they nod, and they know the answers. And I’m sitting there in a chair built for a toddler, wondering if Maya’s going to grow up broken because I gave her glitter instead of flashcards.*

He hit send before he could talk himself out of it. He set the phone on his thigh, rubbing his eyes until stars bloomed behind his lids.

The reply came less than two minutes later.

**BlueSky404:** *Listen to me, Nate.*

(She called him Nate—he’d let his real first name slip once, weeks ago, and she’d kept it like a quiet secret between them.)

**BlueSky404:** *A child doesn’t remember whether her kindergarten reading log had three phonetic labels or twelve. She remembers that her dad stayed up past his bedtime to glue stars to her paper because she wanted it to shine.*

Nate’s throat tightened.

**BlueSky404:** *Those ‘neat couples’ you see? Half of them are performing for each other. You aren’t performing. You’re showing up with grease on your sleeves and your heart in your hands. That isn't failure. That’s devotion.*

**BlueSky404:** *And as for the teacher... don’t give her the power to measure your worth. Some people use rules because they don’t know how to handle raw, unpolished love. It frightens them.*

Nate stared at the message. The words felt like cool water poured over an open burn. He read them once, twice, three times, feeling the tension drain out of his jaw.

**GreaseMonkeyDad:** *How do you always know what to say?*

A three-dot typing indicator pulsed on the screen, vanished, pulsed again, and then held steady for nearly a minute before her reply appeared.

**BlueSky404:** *Because I live in a world made entirely of rules, Nate. And every night, I look at the quiet room around me and wonder if anyone will ever see past the blueprint.*

A strange, sudden flutter stirred beneath his ribs. It wasn't the dull ache of grief; it was something sharper, warmer, dangerous in its sweetness. He shifted in the armchair, the leather creaking beneath him.

**GreaseMonkeyDad:** *I see past it. Even in the dark, Blue.*

There was a long silence from the other end. Ten minutes passed. Outside, the wind rattled the old windowpanes of the farmhouse, sending dry maple leaves scraping across the porch. Nate thought she had logged off for the night, retreating behind the safe wall of distance.

Then his phone buzzed in his palm.

**BlueSky404:** *Go to sleep, grease monkey. Make those three-by-five index cards tomorrow. But use the good markers. The bright ones.*

**GreaseMonkeyDad:** *Only if Maya gets to pick the colors.*

**BlueSky404:** *Non-negotiable. Goodnight, Nate.*

**GreaseMonkeyDad:** *Goodnight, Blue.*

Nate locked the phone and set it on the side table. He sat in the dark for a long while, the rhythmic ticking of the wall clock the only sound in the house. For the first time in weeks, the knot in his stomach had loosened. He stood up, stretched his stiff limbs, and walked back down the quiet hallway to Maya’s room to pull the dinosaur blanket up over her small shoulders once more before he slept.

The index cards were ruled. Nate bought them at the pharmacy down the road, three packages wrapped in clear cellophane, three by five inches exactly. But true to his promise, he gave Maya the jumbo pack of twenty-four neon chisel-tip markers.

By Thursday night, the kitchen table looked like a prism had exploded across it. Maya sat cross-legged on a dining chair, her tongue poked out between her front teeth, carefully scrawling the sight words in alternating strokes of radioactive pink and electric lime.

*BECAUSE.* *FRIEND.* *TOGETHER.*

Nate sat across from her, carefully not smudging the wet ink with his thumb. “Look at that ‘B,’ bug. That looks like a Mack truck grill.”

Maya beamed up at him, a smear of neon yellow across her cheekbone. “Miss Holloway is going to say it’s dazzling.”

“I’m pretty sure Miss Holloway doesn’t believe in dazzle,” Nate chuckled softly, brushing a stray dark lock of hair out of her eyes. “She believes in standard margins.”

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