Page 87 of Main Event

“You know some of this already,” Andi says. “Not the details, but you’ve been in this house, and you’ve watched the adoption keep hitting walls. You’re not a kid who doesn’t notice things.”

Kelly’s jaw tightens slightly. “I noticed.”

“I know.” Andi holds her gaze. “What I want you to understand is that what’s happening—the adoption delays, your file being accessed—is connected to something we’re in the middle of dismantling. It won’t be like this forever. And it’s not your fault. Not the delays, not any of it.”

Kelly looks at her for a long moment.

“Is it connected to Jackson Rhoades?” she asks.

The room goes very still. My mother makes a small sound.

Kelly looks at her. “I’m not a child. I’ve been waiting for someone to say it out loud.”

I look at Andi. She looks at me.

“Yes,” I say. “Connected to people who were connected to him. Not him directly.” I hold her eyes. “You did the right thing. What you did in that kitchen—that was the right thing. Nothing that’s happened since then changes that.”

Kelly looks at her hands. Something in her face that isn’t quite relief—more the uncertainty of someone who has held a question for two years and just had it answered.

“Okay,” she says.

My mother pulls her in. Kelly lets her, which is the most important thing. She’s been letting my mother do this for almost two years now. She’s gradually accepting that being held is safe, and every time she allows it, something settles a little further into permanence. She knows she’s loved, but sometimes she’s still afraid to let herself feel it. So, we keep showing her every day, in small ways, to build a bridge of trust.

My father looks at me over their heads.

“The adoption,” he says quietly.

“Bill is working on it,” I say. “Directly. He knows the exact channels where the friction has been created, and he’s addressing them.” I hold his eyes. “It’s going to happen, Dad. We’re going to make sure of it.”

He nods once. The nod of a man who has decided it will happen, one way or another.

Brandon, from the chair by the window: “When this is over, I want to be there. When it’s finalized.” He looks at Kelly. “I want to be in the room with my little sister.”

Kelly looks at him—his broken nose, his bruised jaw, his wrapped hand, his cracked ribs, which he’s endured without complaint for days. She looks at him, and in her eyes, I can see the understanding that Brandon showed up damaged and didn’t make it about himself. This is all about her.

“Okay,” she says again. Softer this time. But a small smile plays on her lips, one that conveys his demand pleases her more than she’s equipped to verbalize. That’s okay—because that’s Kelly, and we accept and love her for who she is.

Deja takes all of this in, her wary eyes taking in every movement and her keen intellect understanding the underlying theme of the machine’s manipulation tactics. I watch as her expression softens, only slightly, but it’s there. She turns her attention to Kelly.

“So this is what you mean when you say they’re your family.”

“No. This is what I mean when I they’re our family.”

Deja nods once and looks down at her hands. Her chin quivers as she absorbs the weight of Kelly’s words and finally accepts them. My mother stands, pulls both Kelly and Deja into her arms, and my father closes the circle from the other side. Then the rest of us join the huddle.

We stay for another hour. My mother makes coffee. My father asks practical questions about the security arrangements. Brandon and Kelly end up at the kitchen table with her homework—she has a history paper, and he has opinions about the source she’s using, and watching them argue amiably about primary sources is the most normal thing that’s happened this week. Deja retreats to her room with her headphone firmly in place. I suspect she has experienced enough feelings tonight and needs time alone to examine them.

Andi is beside me on the couch. She has her hand in mine, fingers threaded together, not saying anything. I look at my family in this room—my parents, who have been trying to make a girl permanently theirs for two years; my brother, with his broken face and intact integrity; a fifteen-year-old who shot a senator, survived, and is now defending a Wikipedia citation to a corporate attorney; and a teenager who found a safe place on her own after working out that the one she had was anything but. I think about what it is we are actually protecting.

Not the title. Not the investigation. Not even the center.

This. Our family.

We leave at eight. Andi is quiet in the truck for the first few minutes. Then she says, “Kelly’s going to be all right.”

“Yes,” I say. “Of course she is. She’s a Woods.”

Andi smiles at that, her warm, understanding smile. “She’s been all right for a while. She just needed someone to tell her it wasn’t her fault.”