Chương 10
“You said you’d never leave me alone with them.”
Ethan remembered the promise. He had made it when he was sixteen.
“I shouldn’t have.”
Lucas flinched as though struck.
Ethan hated himself for the sentence even while believing it.
Ortiz guided Lucas toward the waiting car.
He did not look back.
Ethan returned home after midnight.
Claire was waiting at the kitchen island. Noah slept upstairs at Margaret’s house because Claire had decided the conversation should happen without one of them using the baby as an excuse to stop it.
The legal papers were gone. The police had taken them. Only the faint scratch from Margaret’s phone remained on the white stone.
Ethan stood by the doorway.
Claire looked at his muddy boots.
“Did he run?”
“Yes.”
“What did you do?”
“I moved.”
“Toward him?”
“Out of the way.”
Her shoulders lowered.
Ethan sat across from her and told her everything. He described the duffel bag, the statement, the gasoline, the lighter, the arrest. He repeated Lucas’s words about their father and his own answer outside the workshop.
He did not shorten the ugly parts.
When he finished, Claire asked, “Do you regret saying it?”
“Yes.”
“Was it true?”
“Yes.”
They sat in silence.
The ice maker dropped a tray of cubes inside the freezer. Claire startled slightly, then pressed one hand against her chest.
Ethan looked away to give her privacy from the reaction.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“For tonight?”
“For the kitchen. For before the kitchen. For making you responsible for stopping me.”
Claire’s eyes filled, but the tears did not fall.
“I still love you,” she said.
He waited.
“That isn’t permission to come home.”
“I know.”
She rubbed the paper-thin scar above her wrist where an IV had been placed after Noah’s birth.
“I need to see what you do when nobody is in immediate danger,” she said. “Anyone can change for a week while the police are calling.”
“That’s fair.”
“I’m not trying to be fair.”
“All right.”
“I’m trying to be safe.”
He nodded.
Claire reached across the island and placed her hand near his, not touching.
For several minutes, that was enough.
Lucas remained in custody through the first court hearing. His attorney argued that the assault accusation arose from a family dispute and that the financial transfers had been authorized business decisions. The prosecutor presented the voicemail, the hallway recording, the prepared statement, and the materials seized from the workshop.
The judge set conditions Ethan did not fully understand until Ortiz explained them afterward. Lucas would have no contact with Claire, Margaret, Noah, or Ethan. He would surrender access to financial accounts and electronic devices. A later hearing would determine whether he could be released while the case continued.
Nothing felt final.
The stopped and frozen transfers returned eighty-two thousand dollars to Cole Restoration. Another eleven thousand was recovered from the cash in Lucas’s duffel. The remaining loss, combined with legal fees and delayed contracts, forced Ethan to sell the warehouse.
The company moved into a rented office behind a plumbing supplier. Nine employees stayed.
Ethan told them the truth in a Monday morning meeting. Not every detail, but enough.
“My brother used my access because I gave him too much access,” he said. “I ignored warnings because I didn’t want them to be true. The theft is his responsibility. The failure to supervise the company is mine.”
A carpenter in the back row asked whether payroll would continue.
“Yes.”
“You sure?”
Ethan looked at his supervisor, then at the accountant.
“For the next eight weeks, yes. After that depends on the contracts we keep.”
It was not the answer they wanted.
It was the first one he trusted.
Two more employees left before the end of the month. The others stayed, some from loyalty, some because they lacked better offers, and some because their anger at Lucas was easier to manage than uncertainty elsewhere.
Claire remained with Margaret for six weeks.
Ethan saw Noah three evenings each week and Saturday afternoons. At first, Claire stayed in the room for every visit. Later, she walked to the grocery store while Ethan fed Noah and folded laundry. The first time she left them alone, she stood at the door for nearly a minute with her purse over one shoulder.
“Text me if he coughs differently,” she said.
“I will.”
“Not every cough.”
“All right.”
“And don’t give him the blue pacifier. The edge is splitting.”
“I threw it away yesterday.”
Claire looked surprised.
Then suspicious.
Then embarrassed by the suspicion.
“Okay,” she said.
Ethan did not tell her she should trust him. He had begun to understand that asking for trust was often another way of asking the injured person to perform the repair.
Margaret attended one therapy session with him.
She arrived seven minutes early and brought a legal pad. The therapist asked her to put it away.
“I take notes,” she said.
“Today, try listening without preparing your response.”
Margaret looked at Ethan. “You picked him?”
Ethan laughed before he could stop himself.
Margaret’s mouth twitched.
The therapist did not seem amused.
During the session, Margaret admitted she had used Ethan’s reliability as a weapon against Lucas and Lucas’s chaos as a reason to control Ethan. She had praised one son whenever she wanted to punish the other.
“I thought comparisons motivated people,” she said.
“They motivated us,” Ethan answered. “Just not the way you wanted.”
She nodded.
Later, the therapist asked Ethan what he needed from her.
He had expected the question and still had no answer.
“Stop deciding what information I can handle,” he said.
Margaret folded her hands in her lap.
“All right.”
“That includes bad things about you.”
“I understood.”
“And don’t say all right when you mean you’ll try.”
She looked offended.
Then thoughtful.
“I’ll try,” she said.
It was the closest they came to reconciliation that day.
May you like
Claire moved home in early winter.
She did not make an announcement. She brought two suitcases, Noah’s portable crib, and a written list she placed on the kitchen island.
