“Hi, champ,” Sofia said, bending down to hug him. “Look, honey, this is a friend of Mom’s. His name is Alex.”
Alex crouched down too, trying to make his gaze friendly, not intimidating. “Hello, Daniel,” he said, his voice surprisingly soft.
Daniel, with the innocence of a child, looked him up and down. “Are you an astronaut? Do you know my dad?”
The question pierced Alex’s heart. He looked at Sofia, who gave him a warning look. “No, darling,” Sofia said gently. “Alex isn’t an astronaut. He’s just a friend.”
Alex felt a wave of shame and an iron will. He couldn’t be the imaginary astronaut, but he could be the real father.
For the next few weeks, Alex devoted himself to rectifying his mistakes with an intensity that rivaled the dedication he had shown in building his empire. His first action was to fire Richard Sterling and his entire legal team, launching an internal investigation that uncovered several questionable practices Sterling had carried out on his behalf. Alex personally apologized to Sofia’s brother, Miguel, and compensated him for the legal harassment.
But the most important thing was his approach to Daniel. It began with short visits, under Sofia’s watchful eye. He read him stories, they played with toy cars on Sofia’s living room floor, and little by little, Daniel began to see him as a “special friend” of his mother’s. Alex didn’t immediately try to usurp the astronaut story. He wanted to earn his son’s trust, not impose his will.
Sofia, though still cautious, began to see a genuine change in Alex. He was no longer the workaholic who had abandoned her. He was a man seeking redemption, who bent down to tie Daniel’s shoelaces, who patiently listened to her stories from daycare, who even helped her clean the kitchen after dinner.
