Page 30 of Daddy's Ring
The moment she's settled, something inside me fractures.
I make it to the hallway before the first sob hits, then I'm sliding down the wall, knees pulled to my chest, trying to muffle the sounds that are tearing out of me. I press my face against my knees and cry the way I haven't cried since my mother died. Raw, ugly, the kind of grief that empties you out and leaves nothing but jagged edges.
Everyone is gone. My mother. Declan—not dead but gone in every way that matters. And now Nia, who held me together when I fell apart at twenty-one, who never judged me for running, who loved me when I couldn't love myself.
I'm twenty-nine years old, sitting on the floor of a dead woman's apartment, responsible for a baby I have no idea how to raise, drowning in a grief so profound it has texture and weight. This is what it means to be completely alone. Not lonely—alone. No safety net. No backup. Just me and a baby who deserves so much better than what I can give her.
I don't know how long I sit there. Long enough for the tears to run dry. Long enough for the late afternoon light to shiftthrough the windows. Long enough that when my phone buzzes in my pocket, I startle like I've forgotten the outside world exists.
It's Serena.
Serena:Just finished my shift at the hospital. On my way.
Right. I texted her this morning, asked if she could watch Maeve for a few hours. I need to go to The Cracked Cask, need to quit before Ray schedules me for shifts I can't work. Need to start dismantling my old life so I can build this new one I never wanted.
Zola:We're home. Thank you.
I haul myself off the floor, wash my face in the bathroom sink, try to make myself look like a functional human being instead of someone who just spent twenty minutes sobbing on hardwood. The mirror shows me the truth: swollen eyes, thin frame, exhaustion carved into every feature. But it's the best I can manage, so it'll have to be good enough.
Serena arrives fifteen minutes later, her scrubs exchanged for jeans and a sweater, her hair pulled back in a neat bun. She was Nia's night nurse when the hospice care ramped up, when Nia couldn't be left alone. I had to work late shifts to cover rent and expenses, and Serena stayed, providing comfort and medication management with the kind of gentle competence that made dying less terrifying.
She spent months with Maeve, held her while Nia slept, fed her bottles and changed diapers and sang soft songs in Polish that sounded like lullabies.
"Hey sweetie." She pulls me into a hug that smells like hospital soap and something floral. "How are you holding up?"
The question almost breaks me again, but I've cried myself dry. "I'm here."
"That's enough." She releases me, her dark eyes searching my face with too much understanding. "Maeve still sleeping?"
"Just went down maybe forty-five minutes ago."
"I'll keep an ear out. You take your time, do what you need to do." She squeezes my shoulder. "We're going to get through this, Zola. One day at a time."
I nod because speaking might shatter whatever fragile control I've managed to rebuild. Then I grab my keys and escape before the apartment's walls close in completely.
The walkto The Cracked Cask takes fifteen minutes through streets that feel both familiar and foreign. I've been back in Philadelphia almost a year, but I still sometimes forget where I am. Turn a corner expecting to see the bodega from my old neighborhood in Brooklyn and instead finding the corner store where Nia and I used to buy candy as kids. It's disorienting, this collision of past and present, of who I was and who I've become.
The bar is quiet when I push through the door, the afternoon lull before the evening rush. A handful of regulars occupy their usual spots, nursing beers and watching whatever game plays on the mounted TV. The familiar smell hits me—stale beer, fried food, the faint sweetness of spilled liquor that never quite washes out of wood floors.
And Naomi is behind the bar.
I stop just inside the door, blinking, wondering if grief has scrambled my brain. I didn't expect to see her.
She looks up when the door chimes, and her face splits into a smile that dims when she actually sees me. "Zola?"
I cross to the bar, sliding onto a stool while my brain tries to process this unexpected variable. "What are you doing here?"
"Filling in. Ray called this morning saying he was short-staffed." She leans against the bar, studying me with those dark, knowing eyes. "What are you doing here? I thought you were taking time off."
"I am. I need to talk to Ray."
Something in my tone makes her expression shift from casual concern to something sharper. But before she can push, Ray emerges from the back office, his thinning gray hair slightly mussed, reading glasses perched on his nose.
"Zola." He rounds the bar, genuine sympathy softening his weathered features. "I'm sorry about your friend. How are you doing?"
"I need to quit."
The words come out flat, matter-of-fact, like I'm ordering coffee instead of ending a job I've held for months. Ray's expression doesn't change, just nods slowly.
