Chapter 9: What Dad Said They Would Do
By the time we got home, Leo had taken off his shoes but not his coat. He sat at the kitchen table with his rabbit in his lap, one thumb rubbing the bent ear, while I eased myself into the chair across from him.
“You don’t have to talk about anything,” I said. “You can tell me what’s on your mind, or we can just sit here.”
He watched the rabbit’s face.
“Can someone take Grandpa’s money to save a building?”
The question landed harder than it should have. I rested both hands on the table, feeling the small, insistent movement of the baby beneath my ribs.
“Why are you wondering about that?”
Leo’s shoulders crept toward his ears. I let the silence stay quiet. He could fill it or leave it empty.
“Dad said the bank needed your name,” he said at last. “Then they’d give him the money, and Riverline wouldn’t get sold on Friday.”
I didn’t ask where he’d heard it or when. I didn’t ask him to repeat the words. His eyes remained on the rabbit, and I could see the effort it cost him to offer even that much.
“Did Dad say Grandpa’s money was going to the building?” I asked.
Leo nodded.
A cold line seemed to draw itself down my back. Julian hadn’t merely talked about a bank or a deadline in front of our son. He’d told Leo that my name could turn my father’s money into a way to keep Riverline alive.
I reached for Leo’s hand, then stopped before touching him.
“Would you like me to hold your hand, or would you rather keep holding your rabbit?”
“The rabbit.”
“Okay.”
He hugged it closer. I kept my hands on my side of the table.
“Leo, you didn’t make any of this happen,” I said. “Your drawing didn’t cause it, and telling the truth about what you heard didn’t cause it either. Grown-ups have to take care of grown-up problems. You don’t have to fix them for us.”
His mouth tightened. For a moment, I thought he might ask something else. Then he slid down from the chair and carried the rabbit toward the living room.
“Can I watch my show?”
“Yes.”
He looked back at me once, as if checking whether I meant it. I nodded. He went to the couch, climbed up, and tucked the rabbit beside him without asking me to follow.
I stayed at the kitchen table until the screen began murmuring from the other room. The baby shifted again. I pressed one palm against my stomach and tried to breathe through the tightness—not the sharpness of a contraction, just my body remembering that it was carrying more than it could comfortably hold.
My phone rang.
Mara’s name appeared on the screen. I answered and listened while she got straight to it.
“Melissa sent the complete message export,” she said. “She also let me compare it with the thread on her phone. The dates and sender information match, and the conversation is intact.”
I looked toward the living room. Leo was facing the television, rabbit tucked under his arm.
“Does it confirm what she showed us?”
“Yes. Julian told her the lender needed your signature on the pledge. He said he would handle you and that you’d sign before the review.”
The words sounded different coming through the phone. Less like Melissa’s attempt to distance herself, more like Julian’s certainty—his belief that he could arrange the outcome before I knew what was being arranged.
“And the deadline?”
“The lender’s final review is Friday morning.”
I closed my eyes. Friday had been sitting in the middle of this story for weeks, but now it had a time attached to it. It wasn’t an abstract promise Julian had made to Leo. It was a meeting on a calendar, a decision someone was preparing to make with my name on a page.
“Can the bank use the signature without asking me?” I said.
“I don’t know what it will accept, and I’m not going to guess. What I can tell you is that the full thread supports what Melissa said about Julian’s plan. I’ve kept the export and the source information together.”
No reassurance, no easy promise. I was grateful for that.
“Thank you.”
“You don’t need to do anything with Leo’s words,” Mara said. “He isn’t responsible for proving anything.”
“I know.”
After we hung up, I stood slowly and walked into the living room. Leo had chosen a bright cartoon with singing animals. His rabbit lay across his lap, one ear bent just as it had been in court.
“Want a snack?” I asked.
“Apple.”
I went to the kitchen and cut one into thin slices. When I brought the plate over, he shifted enough to make room beside him, but he didn’t look away from the show.
I sat down at the far end of the couch. For a little while, we watched the cartoon together without talking. Leo’s fingers moved over the rabbit’s worn paw in time with the music. I let the ordinary noise fill the room.
My phone buzzed against the coffee table.
The message was from Julian.
May you like
A photograph filled the screen: a page with lines of printed text and a signature at the bottom. My name sat beneath the words, shaped to look like mine.
Under it, Julian had written: “You can still tell them this was our agreement.”
