Chapter 69 - The Question at Dinner
Noah waited until dinner to ask.
“Are you still the boss?”
I set down my fork.
“No.”
“For a while?”
“No. I’ve agreed not to go back to that job.”
He looked toward Lena.
She nodded.
Nico studied my face.
“Did they choose somebody else?”
“They’re choosing permanent leadership. Someone else is already handling the job.”
Isabel wanted to know whether I would still need my work shoes.
“Yes.”
That seemed to settle her concern.
The boys had more questions.
Would I still work?
What would happen to the people in the building?
Did leaving mean the investigation was over?
I answered carefully.
There were things still unresolved.
I would cooperate with the remaining processes.
I had other responsibilities, but I had not yet decided what future work should look like.
Nico pushed a piece of pasta around his plate.
“Were you pretending before?”
I looked at him.
“When you told us you were different.”
Lena remained quiet beside me.
I took a breath.
“I meant it. I had also left things unexamined that I should have faced.”
“So you didn’t know?”
“Some things I didn’t know. Some things I had enough information to question and chose not to.”
He considered that.
“I don’t like it.”
“Neither do I.”
“That’s different.”
“Yes,” I said. “It is.”
He ate another mouthful.
I let him.
After dinner, he went upstairs without asking me to help with his model.
I felt the absence.
I did not follow him carrying an explanation he had not requested.
Lena found me washing the same plate twice.
“He gets to be disappointed.”
“I know.”
She leaned against the counter.
“You can survive him seeing something difficult.”
“I’m worried he’ll only see that.”
“He’s lived with you for years. Give him time to put it together.”
Later, I knocked on his door.
He was drawing supports for another structure.
“Can I come in?”
He nodded.
I sat on the floor.
For a while, he worked.
Then he asked, “Will the people you hurt get to say they don’t like you?”
“Yes.”
“Even if you do better?”
“Yes.”
He erased a line.
“That seems hard.”
“It is.”
He glanced at me.
Then he handed me a ruler.
“Hold it there.”
May you like
I held it exactly where he showed me.
We worked quietly until he was ready for bed.
