“He’s working for pennies, Diego. I’m pretty sure the trust fund is still there. He’s just…taking a sabbatical.”
Diego shakes his head, his eyes fixed on mine with startling intensity. “No. He didn’t just walk away from the name. He sold his fancy car and donated the whole damn thing. Every cent went to that legal aid housing thing downtown.”
I feel the blood drain out of my face. The site around me doesn’t get quiet, but the noise starts to feel like it’s coming from underwater.
Forty thousand dollars.
The anonymous donation that hit our books. The money that saved Mrs. Rodriguez’s radiator. The money that’s helping to pay for the lead inspector in the Delgado build. I’d spent weeks imagining it was Skyler, but never truly believing it. Because I honestly thought it had been a wealthy philanthropist with aguilty conscience or a faceless foundation looking for a tax write-off.
I never actually thought it was Skyler.
I look at him now—the man eating peanut butter on white bread and generic ramen in a Styrofoam cup. I’d judged him for it. In my head, I assumed his “salt-of-the-earth” performance was a ploy. I thought it was a costume he’d peel off, eventually.
“That’s why he’s eating like a college kid,” Diego adds, his voice pulling me back to the mud and the sawdust. “Doesn’t have a dime to his name beyond the paycheck we give him. He bought that beat-up truck and rents a basement unit on the North Side. He never mentions it, though. Just shows up at seven a.m., works harder than anyone on the crew, and spends his lunch break sketching porch railings.”
I grip the clipboard so hard my knuckles turn white.
Everything I thought I knew feels like a blueprint that’s been drawn upside down. I thought Skyler’s “transformation” was a bid to win me back—a romantic gesture designed to convince me he’d changed just enough to be tolerable. I thought he was playing at being a person until the novelty wore off.
But you don’t eat ramen every day as part of a PR campaign.
You do that when you’re trying to burn the house down so you can build something else on the land.
“He’s a good man, Harley,” Diego says quietly. He stares at me for a long beat, his eyes searching mine with a wisdom that makes me want to look away. “Lost his way for a bit, maybe. But he’s found the right tools now. Just thought you should know…in case you’re here for more than just the timelines.”
Diego doesn’t wait for me to answer. He just nods, hitches his tool belt, and walks back toward the house, shouting instructions to the drywall crew.
I’m left standing behind the lumber, the air suddenly feeling thin and sharp. I look at Skyler, who’s kneeling in the dirt,hammering a brace into place. Each strike of the hammer is precise. Each movement is a choice.
I think of the $40,000. Of the children who aren’t coughing because their heat is on. I think of the man who let his mother throw away the cedar boxes.
They are the same man, and yet they couldn’t be more different. One was a prisoner of a legacy he didn’t earn. The other is a man earning his own life, one nail at a time.
And it’s time I stopped hiding behind the lumber.
The walk across the lot feels like crossing a minefield, if the mines were made of orange extension cords and deep, muddy ruts that want to swallow my dignity.
This time, there is no skulking. I abandon the safe shadows of the lumber stacks and step into the open. I walk with my head high.
The workers nod to me as I pass. They’ve seen me here with Mrs. Delgado enough times to recognize the ‘Social Work Lady.’ One of the guys on the scaffolding gives me a thumb’s up.
I reach the plywood table where Skyler is working.
At first, he doesn’t see me. He’s completely submerged in the blueprints, his brow furrowed as he traces a line with a pencil stub. Sawdust is matted into his eyebrows, and his forearm is smudged with a streak of red chalk.
I stand there for a beat, just watching the way his hands move. They used to be the hands of a pianist—soft, cared for, designed for turning pages and holding wineglasses. Now, they’re scarred and darkened by the sun. They’re the hands of a man who knows the weight of a hammer.
“The back porch still needs that brace, Skyler. No matter how many times you redraw the landing.”
He jumps, his head snapping up with such force that the pencil stub flies from behind his ear and disappears into the gravel. Hiseyes go wide, his pupils dilating as he processes the fact that I’m standing two feet away without a client to protect me.
“Harley,” he breathes.
The sound of my name is different. Not with the desperate pleading quality it had in my father’s living room. It doesn’t have the managing, polished tone of our engagement. It’s just a word, weighted with surprise and a cautious hope that makes my chest ache.
“You’re right about the landing,” I say, gesturing to the blueprint. “If you don’t reinforce it, it won’t hold the weight of the furniture Mrs. Delgado is planning to bring. She’s got a mahogany dresser that weighs as much as a small car.”
Skyler looks down at the plans, then back at me. He swallows, and I see the way his throat moves, the muscles tight with a tension he’s trying to hide. “I’m putting in double-header joists. It’ll hold a tank if she wants to park one in the hallway.”
