Dawn found them on the sofa, wrapped in the afghan. Leo had fallen into an exhausted sleep, his hand still fisted in Mark’s shirt. Mark looked around the living room. It was bare, sterile. He realized, with a jolt, that Christmas was in two days. He hadn’t put up a tree in five years.
Leo stirred, tensing as he woke, then slowly relaxing as he remembered where he was.
– You… you brought me back.
– I will always bring you back.
Mark said, his voice rough with lack of sleep.
– I don’t… I don’t know how to be in a home.
Leo whispered.
– That’s okay.
Mark replied, looking at the small boy.
– Neither do I. We’ll learn.
He took a deep breath.
– David is filing the final emergency papers today. The judge will sign them. It’s… it’s done, Leo. It’s real.
Leo looked up, his eyes wide with raw, fragile hope.
– So… you’re… you’re my…?
He couldn’t say the word. Mark’s own throat was tight.
– Yeah. I am. I’m your… Dad.
Leo buried his face in Mark’s chest. Mark held him, the first time he’d truly held someone in five years.
– I love you, son.
He whispered into the boy’s hair.
A muffled, tiny voice replied, «I love you too… Dad.»
The day the adoption was finalized, it snowed. Not a biting, angry wind, but a soft, heavy fall that blanketed Willowbrook in white. Mark, for the first time in his life, had taken the day off work for no reason other than to be.
He and Leo stood in the living room, wrestling a ridiculously large Fraser fir into a stand—the first Christmas tree to stand in this loft in half a decade.
– It’s crooked.
Leo observed, his head tilted.
– It’s… rustic.
Mark countered, wiping pine sap on his jeans.
Later, they sat at the kitchen island, drinking hot chocolate (from a packet, but Mark had added marshmallows) and eating grilled cheese sandwiches. The apartment was a mess of tinsel, open boxes, and pine needles. It was no longer empty.
– Dad?
Leo asked, his voice serious.
– Yeah, kid?
– Can we… can we go build a snowman?
Mark looked out the window at the mounting drifts, then back at Leo’s hopeful face.
– We’ll build a snowman. And a fort. And we’ll have snowballs.
Leo’s face split into a grin—a real, genuine, unguarded grin. Mark felt his own lips mirror the expression.
They bundled up and went down to the small, snow-filled courtyard behind the mill building. Leo, laughing, immediately threw a badly-aimed snowball that hit Mark in the chest. Mark, feigning a mortal wound, staggered back before launching a perfectly-aimed counter-attack.
Other residents watched from their windows, stunned to see the reclusive, brooding Mark Richardson engaged in a full-blown snowball war, laughing as he and the small boy tumbled into a snowdrift. For the first time since Sarah’s death, Mark felt completely, unequivocally alive.
That evening, they sat on the floor, admiring the tree. It was, objectively, terrible. The lights were tangled, and all the ornaments were clustered on the bottom branches. It was perfect.
Leo, sleepy and warm, leaned against Mark’s side, holding his old, faded photograph of Sarah.
– I’m glad I stayed.
He murmured. Mark put his arm around his son’s shoulders, pulling him close.
– Me too, son.
He replied, his voice thick.
– Me too.
He looked at the tree, then at the photo of his wife in his son’s hand. Sarah had left him a final, complicated gift. She had known he needed to be saved. And looking at the sleeping boy who was now, in every way that mattered, his, Mark knew that love didn’t need blood. It just needed a heart willing to open. And his, finally, was.
