Page 2 of Faultlines

I take a step backward. “No.”

“Daddy!”

“Absolutely not.”

She launches herself at me anyway. A second later, my jeans are ruined. Claire doubles over laughing. Ellie wraps muddy arms around my legs. I look at the disaster that used to be my clothing. I look at my wife with a smile. “I blame you.”

Ellie giggles, and before I know it I’m laughing too.

I pull them both into a hug, and all three of us are laughing. Rainwater and mud drip across the floor, and it feels perfect.

CHAPTER ONE

HAIRLINE CRACKS

Claire

I lower myself into my office chair, my throat raw from a day of negotiations that went nowhere. My eyes land on a stack of resident files, Heidi’s on top. I should sign them, but my hand feels too heavy to lift the pen. An empty coffee mug sits beside my laptop, a cold reminder of a break I never took.

I reach for my phone to check the time.

4:30 p.m.

Ellie’s academic awards ceremony.

“Damn it.”

I squeeze my eyes shut.

Between the emergency trip to urgent care after one of the girls was injured, two hours of arguing over funding, and mediating yet another resident dispute, I’d forgotten.

My gaze lands on the framed photo beside my monitor. Ellie, six years old, grinning through the gap where she’d lost her front tooth. There was a time when I was there for every scraped knee, bedtime story and school performance. Now, eighteen months after returning to work, it feels like I’m forever racing from one crisis to the next, missing the moments that matter most.

I miss hearing about her day over dinner. I miss ordinary evenings that don’t require negotiations and calendars. Most of all, I miss being the first person she wants to tell.

We once had an endless supply of time, lingering over dinner and talking about our day. Now our conversations revolve around work schedules and logistics, like we’re brokering an international peace treaty.

I reread the same email for the third time, the words blurring together. Last week, I spent ten minutes searching for my glasses only for Ellie to point out they were on my head. It’s funny until it’s not. I’m running on caffeine and calendar reminders, and even that’s starting to fail me. Between hot flashes and a non-existent sex drive, I feel like a stranger in my body. ‘Professionally accomplished and personally unraveling’—that’s me.

Constant drama at Juniper House consumes my spare time. Most people hear “group home” and picture a building. I picture faces: Heidi, Brianna, and Kayla are just three of the twenty-four girls that live here.

Juniper House exists for girls who have run out of second chances, bounced between foster homes, relatives, and systems that have failed them. Each girl comes with a different story, but most begin the same way. Someone who should have protected them didn’t. My goal is to help these girls believe they deserve a future that looks different from their past.

My phone buzzes—the screen lights up with a picture of Ethan from college. Just like that, I’m back in the campus library, watching him barrel through the doors, his dark hair a mess and that easy grin already spreading across his face. He’d invented excuses to talk to me at the circulation desk for three months before finally asking me out.

“What are you doing Friday?”

I looked up from my cart of books. “Working.”

“Right. Yeah. Of course.” He shoved his hands in his pockets, suddenly awkward. For a guy who could charm an entire room, he looked terrified. “I was wondering if you’d maybe want to get dinner?”

My heart did an embarrassing little flip. “Dinner?”

“Or not dinner.”

“I eat dinner.”

He smiled, relieved. “Right. Good point.” He took a deep breath. “Claire, would you like to go on an actual date with me? One where food may or may not be involved?”