What Henry actually needs isn't another scheduled activity or upgraded security protocol.
It’s connection. Something I don’t know how to build, and refuses to be systematized.
"I want to tell you something," I say, breaking the quiet that has settled between us.
Henry looks up immediately, his dark eyes—so much like Catherine's—fixing on mine. Attentive. Serious.
He's always been good at sensing when something matters.
It's a skill I recognize—one I've cultivated myself in boardrooms and negotiations, reading the space between what people say and what they mean, and sometimes even what they want.
"I'm working with a service," I continue, keeping my tone carefully neutral. Measured. Like I'm explaining a schedule change or a new security protocol. Something manageable and straightforward, with clear parameters and expected outcomes.
"A matchmaking service," I add.
The words sound strange in my own ears as they emerge. Clinical. Transactional. Stripped of the emotional complexity that brought me to ERS's office in the first place, reduced to their most basic functional components.
Which is accurate, I suppose, but not the whole truth.
Henry doesn't react right away. He's learned, through years of watching me navigate difficult conversations, that immediate responses often reveal more than intended.
Instead, he goes back to his book, turns a page. The gesture is deliberate, like he's buying himself time to process.
But I see the way his shoulders tense, just slightly, and I have to look away.
"I just wanted you to know," I add.
The sentence comes out wrong the moment it leaves my mouth, carries implications I didn't mean to convey. Like I'm apologizing for the decision. This is a simple fact, not something I need a ten-year-old's permission for.
Still.
Minutes pass.
Henry asks no questions. Makes no comments.
He shifts positions on the couch, tucks one foot under the other leg, presses his thumb into the spine of his book like he's testing its structural integrity.
I've learned not to underestimate silence—especially his.
He's thinking. Measuring. Deciding what's worth voicing and what isn't.
I think about Lindsay laughing with him in the office hallway. How easily she met him where he was. How she didn't fill space with explanation or justification.
She justlistened.
I don't know how to explain this to him. Not without making it about something it isn't. Not without risking words that can't be taken back.
So I wait.
Henry finally closes his book.
He doesn't look at me at first. He stares at the blank television screen, his reflection faintly visible in the dark glass.
Older than ten in moments like this. Sharper. More aware.
"You want a new girlfriend?" he asks quietly.
It's not an accusation. Just a statement. Like he's asking about dinner plans or weekend schedules. Matter-of-fact. Clinical, almost.
