Saylor is very still. He’s watching my face. Studying me. Reading me the way he reads everything, with that total attention that makes you feel like the only person in any room he’s ever stood in.
“Can you use that money to start another company?” Saylor asks.
“I could,” I say. I look at Ada. Then at Saylor. I watch the ripples move through both of them—Ada’s hand tightening on mine, Saylor’s jaw setting, the kitchen suddenly smaller and quieter than it was thirty seconds ago. I sit up straighter. “But I’ve already decided how I want to use the cash.”
“Use it how?” Saylor asks.
I look at Ada. “Dr. Yassa’s procedure. Ada, I want to sponsor your whole treatment. Consult to follow-up. I want to see you walk again, upright and pain free. I want to cheer you on as you run another marathon. Nothing would mean more to me.”
Ada’s eyes widen. She looks at Saylor. Saylor’s face has gone completely still—not calm still, but frozen still. The stillness of a man watching a door open that he’d nailed shut.
“What are you talking about, dear?” Ada asks.
My gaze snaps to Saylor. “You haven’t told her yet? Rina told me you and Dr. Yassa were in touch.”
“Tell me what?” Ada asks again.
“How do you even know about this?” he asks me accusingly. “So you and Rina just sit around discussing how to solve my problems for me?”
“What? No. Rina mentioned it in passing. She just told me about the accident, and the new surgeon at Mount Sinai. Saylor, I’m offering to help.”
“Help? Do you know how much they are estimating?” Saylor asks but it’s not a question. It’s a demand. He turns to his mom. “Mum, there’s a laser procedure that you might be a candidate for but it is approximately a hundred and sixty thousand dollars. It’s experimental, so insurance doesn’t cover it. I didn’t tell you about it because I didn’t want to get your hopes up and leave you disappointed. I’ve been trying to figure out how to raise the money?—”
“You just did,” I throw in. “I told you?—”
“Celeste, your life is getting picked apart like a game of Jenga. I’m not going to be the one who yanks the final block and watches you crumble to the ground. I wantedyou, not your money. I wanted to fulfill my promises, not have you swoop in like my sugar mama.”
“Saylor—”
“No.” He pushes back from the table. The chair scrapes against the hardwood. “Mum, I’m so sorry. But…no. We can’t.”
Ada makes a small sound. Not a word—a breath that carries the weight of a word. She’s looking between us, her hand still on the table, her paperback forgotten, her face doing thecomplicated arithmetic of a mother who has just been offered something impossible by someone she’s starting to love only to have it snatched away by her son’s decision.
“Saylor,” Ada says quietly. “It’s not your choice.”
“What?” He’s standing now. His hand goes to the back of his neck. The gesture I’ve learned to read as system overload—too many feelings in too small a space, the circuits threatening to blow. “What do you mean it’s not my choice?”
“I know that managing my care makes you feel like you’re in control of all this, but you’re not. The crash was anaccident. Not destiny. That’s all life is, love. Moments followed by other moments. Some good, some bad. But this dream you keep chasing where we have what we once had is killing you. Life is meant to move forward, Saylor. Forward good, or forward bad. What is meant to be, will be. But you micromanaging my life is not to protect me, it’s to protect you. You need somewhere to exercise your guilt. But it has to stop. I love you. I would forgive you, but there’s nothing to forgive. Listen, love, Celeste is offering me this amazing gift, I intend to take it.” She looks at me. “If and when I’m able…I’ll pay you back, every penny?—”
“Ada, no need.”
“Stop!” His voice rises. Not a shout—Saylor doesn’t shout—more a sharp escalation.
“Saylor, it’s not a big deal?—”
“Not a big deal? Do you understand what it’s like standing next to you? Every single day in your world is a reminder that I can’t provide. I can’t pick up the check for dinner at restaurants you love. I can’t buy you the things you deserve. I can barely keep this house from falling apart, and every repair I make is onyourproperty, with materials bought withyourmoney. Sometimes I don’t know why you’re with me. And now this? You coming in to clean up my life? Not only do I not feel like a man in your world, now I don’t feel like one in mine. So, thanks for that.”
“Saylor!” Ada scolds.
“I need some air.” He grabs his keys from the counter. The sound of metal on granite is sharp and final.
He walks toward the door. Ada stays at the table, wise enough to know that some fights don’t need to happen. They can dissolve in fresh air where there’s room for angry emotions to swell, explode, then blow away in the night breeze without breaking anything that can’t be repaired.
I’m not as wise.
I follow Saylor out of the house. I take hurried steps following his invisible footprints right out the front door. The driveway is dark. The porchlight throws a circle of amber that ends at the gravel. Beyond it, the oak tree and the yard and the shape of the guesthouse in the distance. Saylor is halfway to his truck, keys in hand, moving with the rigid posture of a man who is holding himself together through forward motion.
“Saylor, stop!”
