Rachel's POV
Sophie wakes up screaming at two in the morning on day three.
The sound comes through the baby monitor Rachel keeps on her nightstand. Not a soft cry. Not a whimper. A scream that sounds like someone is breaking apart from the inside.
Rachel is out of bed and moving before she's fully awake.
She runs up the stairs to Sophie's room and finds the girl sitting up in bed, tears streaming down her face, gasping for air between sobs. The nightmares are already starting. The ones about her father going away. The ones where everyone leaves.
"I'm here," Rachel says. She sits on the edge of the bed and pulls Sophie into her arms even though she's not sure if she's allowed to. Even though the job description probably says she should maintain professional distance.
She can't maintain distance from her own daughter.
Sophie clings to her like she's drowning and Rachel is the only thing keeping her afloat. The girl's small body is shaking and Rachel just holds her and rocks her slowly back and forth.
"He left me," Sophie whispers. "In the dream he left me."
"I know," Rachel says. "But I'm here. I'm not leaving."
Sophie cries until the tears run out. Then she cries some more.
Rachel stays. She stays until Sophie's breathing steadies. She stays until the girl falls asleep against her chest. She stays in the dark of Sophie's bedroom and understands that she's doing the thing she promised herself she wouldn't do. She's getting attached. She's letting this become something more than a job.
But she can't leave her daughter alone in the dark.
Day three continues and everything changes.
When Sophie wakes up, she asks if they can paint. Rachel sets up a painting station in the corner of the playroom with poster board and washable paints. She doesn't give Sophie instructions. She just sits down and starts painting her own picture.
Sophie watches for a while. Then she picks up a brush.
The girl doesn't paint carefully. She doesn't follow rules. She makes big sweeping strokes of color. Yellow and blue and green all mixing together until the colors become something unexpected. Rachel sits next to her and paints alongside her without saying much.
By lunchtime, Sophie asks if they can bake.
Rachel finds the kitchen empty because James is at the office where he's always at the office. She and Sophie pull out flour and butter and eggs. Sophie stands on a stool and helps measure ingredients. She gets flour in her hair. She cracks an egg wrong and gets shell in the bowl.
Rachel doesn't correct her. She just laughs and shows her how to fix it.
They make chocolate chip cookies because those are the ones Sophie mentions liking. While they bake, Sophie talks. Not much. Just small things. Her favorite teacher's name. A boy at school who's mean sometimes. How she wishes her daddy would come home for dinner.
The wish sits between them like something fragile.
"Maybe we can leave him some cookies," Rachel suggests.
Sophie looks at her with hope that breaks Rachel's heart.
"Really?" Sophie asks.
"Really," Rachel says.
They bake extra cookies and put them on a plate in the kitchen with a note that Sophie dictates. "For daddy. Love Sophie."
Sophie's printing is wobbly but clear.
When James comes home that evening, he finds the cookies and the note. Rachel watches from the hallway as he picks up the plate and stares at it like it's written in a language he doesn't understand. He eats one cookie standing at the kitchen counter. Then he eats another.
He doesn't come find Sophie to thank her.
But he saves the note.
By evening, the staff has definitely noticed.
James's assistant Margaret pulls Rachel aside while Sophie is eating dinner with her tutor. "Your daughter seems happier," Margaret says, and she says it like she's confused about it. Like happiness isn't supposed to be a normal state for children in this house.
"She is," Rachel says carefully.
"Mr. Winters mentioned it," Margaret continues. "He said Sophie's behavior has changed. Her teachers have noticed she's more engaged at school. She's making friends."
Rachel's heart does something dangerous when she hears that James noticed. That he mentioned it. That somewhere underneath all his coldness, he's paying attention to his daughter's transformation.
"She just needed time," Rachel says.
Margaret nods but she looks sad. Like she knows what time means in a house like this. Time means moments that pile up with nobody there to witness them.
That night, Sophie asks if Rachel will sit with her while she falls asleep.
Rachel lies down next to her daughter in the dark and reads a story about a princess who's learning to be brave. Sophie listens and slowly her breathing evens out. The girl's small hand reaches out and finds Rachel's hand in the darkness.
She holds on like she's afraid Rachel will disappear if she lets go.
Sophie falls asleep holding her mother's hand.
Rachel lies there in the dark and lets the tears come because this is the daughter she never got to raise. This is the girl she missed the first five years of. This is the child who should have been raised knowing that she was wanted and loved and worth staying for.
Instead Sophie was raised learning the opposite.
Rachel cries silently in the dark with her daughter's hand in hers and wishes she could undo everything. Wishes she could go back and be the wife James needed. Wishes she could be the reason he learned to stay instead of the reason he learned to run.
She doesn't hear the footsteps in the hallway.
She doesn't know James is standing in the doorway watching them.
He's been standing there for five minutes. Maybe longer. Long enough to see his daughter sleeping peacefully while holding someone's hand. Long enough to understand that this woman has done something in three days that he couldn't do in three years.
His daughter is happy.
His daughter is holding someone's hand like she trusts them.
His daughter is becoming the kind of person who knows how to be loved.
James stands in the darkness and watches Rachel cry silently with his daughter sleeping against her chest. He watches this woman grieve something he doesn't understand. He watches her hold onto his child like Sophie is the only thing that matters.
And something inside him breaks open.
He doesn't know what to do with the feeling so he turns around and goes back to his office. He closes the door and tries to work but he can't focus on numbers or deals or anything that matters in the world of business.
All he can think about is the way Rachel cried in the dark.
All he can think about is his daughter sleeping peacefully for the first time since Rachel arrived.
All he can think about is the fact that this woman he barely knows has become more important to his child than he is.
The jealousy is sharp and immediate and completely unfair.
But it's there anyway.
James sits in his office at ten at night and stares at his computer screen and tries to remember the last time anyone cried about him. Tries to remember the last time someone held his hand in the dark because they couldn't bear to let him go.
He can't remember.
Because nobody has ever loved him like that except one woman.
And that woman left.