“I don’t want to talk about him.”Kate reached for her water.“Not tonight.”
“Then we won’t.”Catherine took a slow bite of chicken.“But Iwillsay this: you shouldn’t let him take more space in your mind than he’s already taken.He’s not entitled to it.”
Kate stared at her plate.“I know.”
Silence settled briefly — not uncomfortable, but weighted.
Catherine broke it gently.“You never came to breakfast with a look like that when you were sixteen and failing math.”
"Mom"
“And you never had that look at twenty-three, even when you were burying your father.”
Kate stiffened.
For a moment, she said nothing.She felt the instinct to retreat, to lock down, to put her FBI mask over everything human.But she didn't.Not tonight.
She looked up, voice steady but low.“I would take care of you, you know.”
Catherine blinked.“What?”
Momentarily, Kate couldn’t answer, giving her mother the chance to jump in again.‘Is this something to do with today?With Cox?’
‘No,’ Kate said automatically.‘Yes.A little.I just want you to know that… When you’re older, if you get sick.If— I don’t know.If you needed me.”She swallowed.“In spite of everything, I’d be there.I need you to know that.”
Emotion flickered across her mother’s face — surprise, confusion, something tender she tried and failed to hide.
“After everything?”Catherine asked softly.
Kate nodded once.“Yes.After everything.”
Catherine set her fork down.“Our ‘everything’ wasn’t a disaster, you know.Just… complicated.”
“I know.We’ve had our fallings-out.”
“Every family does.And they’re a long way behind us.”
“After Dad’s death.”
Catherine looked down.Her fingers tightened around her napkin.
“Especially then.”
The words hung like smoke.
Kate forced herself to continue.“We weren’t in sync.You needed me, and I— I was drowning.Then I needed you, but you were trying to survive.It was just… wrong timing all the way around.”
Catherine’s eyes shimmered briefly — not with tears, but with a kind of old, unhealed ache.“I thought I failed you.”
“I thought I disappointed you.”
"And yet here we are."Catherine reached out and covered Kate's hand with her own."Darling, grief doesn't synchronize.It thrashes.It drags.It makes fools of everyone it touches.”
Kate exhaled, relief and pain entwined.“I always felt guilty.Like if I’d been stronger—”
“No,” Catherine said firmly.“No more of that.We carry enough guilt for three families as it is.”
Kate’s throat tightened.“I feel guilty about Dad too.About not stopping him, I guess.”
