I heard the upstairs bathroom door close. In a few minutes, the children would come looking for breakfast, and we would have to put ordinary faces back on.
“Did you?” I asked him.
He nodded once.
Brooke’s anger flickered into something almost uncertain, then hardened again.
“So perhaps you should be having this conversation with your son.”
“I am. But you still heard me say no.”
She opened her mouth, then stopped.
Julian pressed both hands flat on his thighs.
“I thought once we were here, everything would settle down.”
There it was, spoken without his usual helpless shrug.
He had not merely failed to defend me. He had counted on my surrender before he ever loaded the car.
“Is the new house actually going to be ready in two weeks?”
Neither of them answered.
I looked at Julian.
“Get the email.”
“Mom—”
“The one about the closing.”
He took his phone out slowly. His thumb moved across the screen, stopped, moved again. Then he placed it on the table.
The message was dated December twenty-first.
The seller could not complete the closing before the end of January. Even that depended on outstanding work being finished.
I read it twice.
“You knew before you came.”
“Yes.”
Brooke pulled her chair out and sat down.
“We didn’t have a confirmed date,” she said.
“But you had a date you knew was impossible.”
Julian leaned forward, elbows on his knees.
“I thought if I said six weeks, you might say no.”
The kitchen seemed very still.
I looked past him toward the hallway crowded with their belongings. Six weeks of shoes by the door. Six weeks of being useful. Six weeks becoming something else if the house was delayed again.
He had known I might refuse, and he had arranged matters so refusing would hurt the children too.
For a moment, I wanted Richard so badly that I could almost feel the weight of his hand on my shoulder.
Then Lily called from upstairs.
“Daddy?”
Julian closed his eyes.
“Coming, sweetheart.”
He started to stand.
“Breakfast first,” I said. “We finish this afterward.”
He looked relieved.
I held his gaze.
