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“And the businesses are complicated, but not catastrophic.”

“That means expensive.”

“It always does.”

We stop at the corner while a pickup rolls through the crosswalk too fast. The driver lifts two fingers from the wheel like that absolves him.

Jessica waits until we start walking again.

“You don’t sound relieved.”

“I suppose I am.”

“Convincing.”

“I don’t know what relief is supposed to feel like right now.”

That shuts her up for almost three steps.

Then she says, softer, “Fair.”

We pass the ice cream shack, the florist, the real estate office with the same headshots in the window from fifteen years ago. That one always makes Jessica frown. Renny used to say Riverside was preserved in amber. He said it fondly.

The Riverview comes into sight past the next crossing, less residential complex than queer commune. Two rows of bungalows along a path that should be a canopy of roses. These days, it’s mostly dead vines. The original mansion sits gray in the background, waiting patiently for the repairs that Renny never got around to contracting. The outer wall gives off paint as I run my fingers along it.

Renny loved Riverview. He loved that it had survived floods, recessions, and every possible storm. And he loved the people who chose to live there, even as the riverfront evolved around them.

I stop without meaning to.

“You know,” I say, “Reggie thinks a developer would be interested in this place.”

Jessica nods slowly. “Everyone wants a piece of the river.”

“Maybe not me.”

She turns. “You said you wanted to keep it.”

A delivery truck grinds past us. The noise buys me a few seconds.

I’ve spent two months fighting to preserve things I don’t know how to manage. All the relics of Renny’s life stacked around me like this wall around Riverview, protecting something that’s falling apart.

Now there’s Clint, furious and inconvenient and alive, demanding to be seen and heard.

“I don’t know anymore,” I say. “Some things will probably need to be sold eventually.”

Jessica takes off her sunglasses.

“Only if you have to split the business with the boy, right?”

“Clint,” I say, and take a step back, enough to see the height of the mansion. “And yes, if we split it.”

Jessica squints. “You really think you’ll have to?”

“Have to? No. Probably not.” And I almost stop there, because I haven’t said the crazy thing yet. “But maybe I should.”

Jessica steps in front of me, face creasing like I knew it would.

“Paul.”