Page 152 of Scaled Daddy's Secret Heir
Kalev started carving.
At first, it was just wood scraps. Driftwood pieces smoothed by tide and time. Now the shelves are full of little figures—birds, fish, a lopsided vakutan scoutship Clancy insists is perfect.
When I asked him why, Kalev just shrugged.
“Something to leave behind,” he said.
Not because he expects to go.
But because he knows we’ll stay.
I carry that in my chest now. Like warmth. Like breath.
We tell stories over dinner, not war reports. Clancy tells us what the neighbor kid said about sea monsters in the reef. I tell him I’veseenbigger teeth on his father before breakfast. Kalev hums and lifts an eyebrow like it’s a compliment.
The house is messy.
The good kind.
Boots by the door. Crumbs on the table. A laundry basket perpetually half-sorted. Clancy’s shoes in places they shouldn’t be.
Peace doesn’t look like perfection.
It looks likeliving.
I catch myself singing sometimes. Old tunes. Songs from before everything broke. Kalev never interrupts. Just listens like the sound fills something quiet in him, too.
Sometimes, late at night, we sit with our backs against the porch railing, legs tangled, stars above us thick as dust. He’ll reach for my hand, and I’ll let him. No reason. No defense.
Just because wecan.
The past doesn't press down on me like it used to. It still exists—I still wake up with echoes sometimes—but it doesn’townme.
I dreamed last week of the camp.
But in the dream, I walked out.
Not ran.
Not hid.
Walked.
Kalev told me that means something.
He’s right.
We framed new photos last week.
One of Clancy standing on a rock with both fists in the air like a champion. One of Kalev kissing my cheek while I try to pretend I’m annoyed. One of the three of us, blurry with motion, laughing so hard it made the cam tilt.
I look at them every morning.
Proof of life.
We’re not waiting for the other shoe to drop.
We tossed the damn shoes in the sea and watched the tide take them.
