Emily hovered beside me.
“I’m going to order,” she said quickly, and fled to the counter like she’d been given permission to escape.
Linda sat back down, then gestured to the chair across from her.
I sat.
Up close, I could see the tiredness around her eyes.
She swallowed.
“You look… well,” she said.
I almost laughed.
“That’s not the word I would’ve chosen,” I replied.
Linda flinched.
“I deserve that,” she said quietly.
I stared at my hands.
“Why are you here?” I asked.
Linda took a breath.
“I wanted to see the kids,” she said.
“And I wanted… I wanted to see you.”
“To what?” I asked. “Apologize again?”
Linda’s eyes filled.
“Yes,” she admitted. “And to tell you something.”
“What?” I asked.
Linda’s voice dropped.
“David Thompson is suing me,” she said.
“Suing you?”
Linda nodded.
“He says I ruined his business,” she said.
“He says I… he says my case triggered the investigation.”
My stomach turned.
“That’s not how it works,” I said.
“I know,” Linda replied. “But he’s doing it anyway.”
“And you’re telling me because…?”
Linda’s eyes begged.
“Because I’m scared,” she whispered.
The word landed.
I felt anger rise, instinctive.
You were scared when you planned to take my retirement.
You were scared when you talked about my lawyer being incompetent.
You were scared then too, and you didn’t stop.
I breathed through the anger.
“Do you have an attorney?” I asked.
“Yes,” she said. “But… he’s saying he has emails.
He’s saying I knew about the HR thing. That I asked for it.”
“Did you?” I asked.
Linda’s gaze dropped.
“I didn’t ask Margaret directly,” she said.
“But you knew,” I said.
Linda’s shoulders slumped.
“I suspected,” she whispered. “David said he had a way of getting information.
He said it was… normal. He said everyone does it.”
I felt something cold settle.
“So you let him,” I said.
“I was stupid,” she said.
“No,” I replied, my voice steady. “You were willing.”
Linda flinched like I’d slapped her.
Emily returned with coffees, eyes flicking between us.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
Linda wiped her face quickly.
“Nothing,” she lied.
I looked at Emily.
“Your mother is being sued by Thompson,” I said.
Emily’s mouth parted.
“What?”
Linda’s shoulders sagged.
Emily looked at Linda.
“Mom,” she whispered.
“What did you do?”
Linda’s voice cracked.
“I made a mess,” she said. “I made a mess and I’m trying to clean it up.”
“And Dad has to deal with it too?” she asked.
Linda shook her head.
“No,” she said quickly. “I don’t want him involved.
I just… I needed him to know. I needed to say I’m sorry again.”
I sat back.
“Linda,” I said quietly, “I’m not your emergency contact anymore.”
Her eyes widened.
“I know,” she whispered.
I held her gaze.
“Then don’t come to me for rescue,” I said. “Handle your own life.”
Linda’s face crumpled.
“I am,” she said.
“I’m trying.”
Emily reached across the table and took her mother’s hand.
Linda sobbed quietly.
I didn’t comfort her.
Not because I wanted her to hurt.
Because comfort from me would’ve been a lie.
When we left the coffee shop, Emily hugged Linda and whispered something I couldn’t hear.
Linda watched me with red-rimmed eyes.
I paused.
“I really did love you,” she said.
“I know,” I replied. “That’s what makes it worse.”
Then I walked away.
On the drive back to the mountains, my hands were steady on the wheel.
That surprised me.
A year earlier, I would’ve been shaking.
Now, I just felt tired.
When I got home, Karen was on my porch.
Not in a romantic movie way. In a practical, neighborly way, holding a plate covered in foil.
“You left your garage light on,” she said.
“Oh,” I said.
“Thanks.”
Karen held up the plate.
“And I made too much cornbread,” she added. “You want some?”
I stared at her, surprised by how much the simple kindness hit.
Karen walked inside like she’d been doing it for years.
“You look like you drove through a storm,” she said.
I set my keys down.
“I saw my ex-wife,” I admitted.
Karen’s eyebrows lifted.
“Ah,” she said. “That kind of storm.”
“She’s being sued,” I said.
Karen set the cornbread down.
“By who?” she asked.
I explained, briefly.
Thompson. The scheme. The investigation.
Karen listened without interrupting.
When I finished, she nodded.
“Sounds like the kind of man who leaves wreckage behind,” she said.
“Yeah,” I replied.
Karen looked at me.
“And you?” she asked.
“What about me?”
Karen’s voice softened.
“Did seeing her break you open again?” she asked.
“No,” I admitted.
“It didn’t. It just… reminded me.”
“Of what?” Karen asked.
I stared at the workshop door.
“That I spent years thinking the staircase was my foundation,” I said. “But the foundation was never the house.
It was the choices.”
Karen nodded slowly.
“That’s true,” she said.
Then she added, casual,
“Eat the cornbread before it gets cold.”
I laughed once.
“Yes, ma’am,” I said.
In the fall, the state board revoked Thompson’s license.
Patricia called me with the news.
“They got him,” she said.
“Is that it?” I asked.
“No,” Patricia replied. “There may be criminal charges. But the license is done.
He can’t practice.”
I expected to feel triumph.
I didn’t.
I felt… quiet.
Like a door had closed.
“And Margaret Chen?” I asked.
Patricia’s voice sharpened.
“She’s being prosecuted,” she said. “She took money. Gifts.
She accessed private records. She’s going to have consequences.”
Patricia paused.
“Robert,” she said, softer, “you did the right thing by cooperating.”
I stared out my window.
“I did it because I got lucky,” I said. “Because I overheard one sentence.
I didn’t want someone else’s life to depend on luck.”
Patricia was quiet for a beat.
“That’s a good reason,” she said.
After I hung up, I walked into my workshop and looked at the staircase design I’d been sketching.
It wasn’t for the deck.
It was a full staircase, oak, solid, wide steps.
A staircase that existed only in my head.
I put the pencil down.
Then I took a fresh piece of paper and started a new project.
A simple bench.
No symbolism.
No ghosts.
Just a bench.
Something you sit on when you’re tired.
Something you offer to someone else.
Around Thanksgiving, Emily called.
“Yeah?”
“We want to come up,” she said. “Me and Jake. Maybe… Mom too.”
“You don’t have to do that,” I said.
Emily’s voice stayed gentle.
“We’re not trying to force anything,” she said.
“We just… we’re tired of living in two separate worlds.”
I stared at the valley.
“You want her here,” I said.
“I want us to be adults,” Emily replied. “And I want to stop holding my breath every holiday.”
When the day came, my driveway filled with cars.
Emily arrived first, carrying bags of groceries like she was staging an invasion. Jake arrived ten minutes later with a cooler of drinks and an attitude that said he’d promised himself he wouldn’t explode.
Linda arrived last.
She stepped out of her sister’s car, looked at my house, and hesitated like she was approaching a stranger’s door.
I didn’t rush to greet her.
I just stood on the porch.
She walked up slowly.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” I replied.
The wind moved through the trees behind us.
Emily appeared, cheeks flushed.
“Okay,” she said briskly.
“We’re doing this. We’re going to eat. We’re going to talk like grown-ups.
And nobody is allowed to start a fight before the turkey’s even in the oven.”
“That’s a very specific rule,” he muttered.
Emily shot him a look.
“It’s an important rule,” she said.
Linda offered a small smile.
“Thank you for letting me come,” she said quietly.
“This is for them,” I said, not cruel, just honest.
Inside, the house filled with noise.
Emily chopped vegetables at my counter like she owned it. Jake opened cabinets, found plates, started setting a table without being asked.
Linda stood in the doorway like she didn’t know where she belonged.
Karen knocked an hour later, holding a pie.
“I heard you had a crowd,” she said.
Emily beamed.
“You must be Karen,” she said.
“And you must be the bossy one,” she replied.
Emily laughed.
“Correct,” she said.
Karen’s gaze flicked to Linda, then to me.
She didn’t ask questions.
She just set the pie down.
“Where do you want me?” she asked.
“Living room,” Emily said. “We need an adult chaperone so no one commits a felony before dinner.”
“I’m honored,” she said dryly.
Jake laughed, surprised.
For a moment, it felt almost normal.
At dinner, we sat around my table—smaller than the old one, scarred in places, real wood that didn’t pretend to be perfect.
Emily led the conversation with the force of a hurricane.
Jake told stories about his job.
Karen listened, offering comments that made people laugh.
Linda ate quietly, eyes down.
After a while, Jake set his
