There was a grin in his voice when he replied. “Relax. I’m fucking with you. I wouldn’t touch her.”
I exhaled.
“Handle your mom,” he said, softer now. “Whatever this is, it’ll wait.”
We hung up.
I stood there for a moment, radio thumping behind me, the smell of fresh-cut wood in the air.
She’d gone back.
To the bar.
To the boat.
Tracing the outline of a night we hadn’t finished.
That meant something.
I picked up the saw again and went back to work.
Because whatever was starting to take shape back in Boston?—
I wasn’t done here yet.
CHAPTER 4
ETHAN
By Thursday afternoon,the house was almost done.
I stood in the hallway with a hammer in my hand, tapping the last nail into the trim while sunlight slanted through the window in that late-summer way that made dust look soft instead of dirty.
My phone buzzed in my pocket for the third time in an hour.
I ignored it.
Not because I didn’t trust them — because I did.
Beth, Chris, Mark.
I’d been shielding calls all week, answering emails late at night after Ma went to bed, keeping things short. Not disappearing, just… giving them space to run without me hovering.
They were good.
Better than good.
Jim had wanted Ivy kids. Top GPAs. Polished résumés that read like instruction manuals.
I’d picked the ones who reminded me of myself.
The kids who’d worked nights. Who’d scraped by. Who’d shown up early and stayed late because they didn’t have a safety net waiting under them.
I smiled to myself as I drove the nail home.
I’d watched them grow fast.
Lunches turned into happy hours. Happy hours into driving ranges after work, ties loosened, sleeves rolled, laughter carrying across the grass like we didn’t care who saw us.
