Page 78 of Monk

Her words hit me like a fist straight to the sternum. Clean. Brutal. Deserved.

I swallowed against the sudden rawness in my throat and gave a small nod. “I did,” I said, my voice rough. “And I’m sorry for that.”

Tatum didn’t say anything. She just kept studying me with that solemn little face, like she was deciding whether my apology meant anything.

Lina took a breath I could hear from where I stood.

“Tatum,” she said gently, one hand resting on her daughter’s shoulder. “John is... he’s your father.”

The room went so quiet I could hear the old wall clock ticking somewhere in the next room.

Tatum blinked once. Twice. Then she looked up at Lina. “My dad?” she repeated, uncertainty threading through the words.

Lina nodded, and even from across the room, I could see how much that cost her. “Yes, baby,” she said softly. “I thought... I thought he was gone. I was wrong. He’s here now.”

Tatum looked back at me, her face unreadable in a way that made my pulse pound even harder.

“You’re my dad?” she asked.

I nodded, my throat locked down so hard the single syllable almost didn’t make it out. “Yeah,” I managed. “I am.”

She tilted her head just slightly, still looking at me with grave concentration. “Where were you?”

The question was simple. Innocent. And it absolutely wrecked me.

I moved before I even realized I was doing it, lowering myself carefully to one knee so I wasn’t towering over her. “I didn’t know about you,” I said. Honesty was all I had to give her right now. “If I had known, I would’ve been here. I swear to you, I would have.”

Tatum searched my face for a long second, like she was trying to find the truth in it. Then her gaze dropped back to the coloring book in front of her. “Okay,” she said quietly.

And that was it. No tears. No dramatic moment. No little arms flinging around my neck.

Just...okay.

And I understood.

She didn’t know me. Didn’t trust me. Couldn’t trust me yet. And I couldn’t blame her for any of that. I had been a ghost her whole life—some vague absence, maybe a question, maybe a story her mother told in pieces. Now suddenly I was real. Standing in her living room. Asking her to make room for me in a world I hadn’t helped build. That kind of thing was never going to happen in a single moment. It was going to take time. Patience. Proof. And if that was what she needed, then that was what I’d give her.

I rose slowly, my knee protesting, and stepped back to give her room to breathe. Room to process. Room to decide, in her own time, what I was allowed to become to her.

“John.”

David’s voice pulled my attention away from Tatum.

He was sitting in the recliner near the fireplace, a blanket draped over his lap, his face pale and drawn from illness but his eyes still sharp as a tack.

“David,” I said with a small nod.

He gestured toward the couch. “Sit,” he said. “You look like you’re about to bolt.”

A laugh almost made it out of me. He wasn’t wrong. I crossed to the couch and sat on the edge of it, my hands braced on my knees like I might need to shove myself upright at any second.

David studied me for a beat, then asked, almost casually, “How are things at the clubhouse?”

I blinked. That was not the question I’d expected. “Uh,” I said, clearing my throat. “They’re... fine. Busy.”

David nodded. “Kansas still running things?”

“Yeah,” I said. “He is. And he’s good at it.”