Masuk[POV: Yessica] [Location: Edinburgh — Kitchen]The pancakes were a deliberate signal and every child in the room knew it.Claire had come from her flat. Ethan was on his Lewis week. Rose had come down the stairs with her sketchbook, which she set on the counter rather than at the table — her version of being present without being fully committed. Grace had arrived first, sat in her usual chair, and said, "Is this about the hamster?" in a tone that suggested she already suspected it wasn't.Yessica made the pancakes and let Lewis begin.He sat at the head of the table without theatre about it and looked at all four of them."I want to talk about Sterling Industries," he said. "Not the business stuff. The part that involves you."Grace raised her hand."You don't need to raise your hand," Lewis said."I know. I'm doing it for emphasis." She lowered it. "Is someone taking it?""No. But eventually someone has to run it, or decide what happens to it, and all four of you are part of that p
[POV: Rose] [Location: Edinburgh — Front Garden / Kitchen]She'd heard what he said.The whole speech was for you.She stood in the front garden with the sketchbook in her hands and told herself it wasn't a big deal. Claire was dramatic. Claire made everything into a thesis. It didn't mean anything specific.But her hands weren't working properly anymore and the drawing she'd been doing of the neighbor's gate looked wrong and she couldn't find where she'd gone off."Come inside," Lewis said. "I'll make tea.""I'm fine out here.""I know. Come inside anyway."She followed him in because arguing would have required a reason and she didn't have one.He made tea the way he always made it — without asking how she wanted it, because he already knew. Milk, no sugar, the bag left in for exactly long enough. He put it in front of her and sat across the table and didn't say anything immediately, which was something she'd started to appreciate about him in the last two weeks.He didn't fill sil
[POV: Lewis] [Location: Edinburgh — Claire's Flat]She had the coffee ready when he arrived.Not his office coffee — she'd gone to the place three streets over that roasted their own, the kind of coffee that required a considered opinion rather than just a preference. She handed him a cup without ceremony and sat across from him at the small kitchen table."You look better than yesterday," she said."Your mother made me sleep.""Good. She should do that more often." Claire wrapped both hands around her cup. "I asked you here for a reason.""I know.""I'm going to say it in order because if I don't say it in order I'll skip the parts that are difficult and just give you the conclusion, which is not useful for you." She looked at him directly. "I've been thinking about Stanford.""Cold feet?""The opposite." A pause. "I want to go into law."Lewis waited. There was more."Specifically family law. Not corporate, not criminal. Family." She held his gaze. "I've been thinking about it sinc
[POV: Lewis] [Location: Edinburgh — Bedroom]He waited until the house was quiet.Grace asleep. Ethan in his room with the light still on, probably reading. Rose's door closed, the faint sound of music through it — a sign she was okay, not shutting out, just existing.He found Yessica in their bedroom, sitting on the edge of the bed with her phone in her lap and the particular stillness that meant she was doing nothing on purpose.Lewis closed the door. Sat beside her."Grace said something to me two nights ago," he said. "She said you seemed tired in a way that isn't regular tired." He paused. "And Ethan said he saw you in the garden late. Sitting alone after you thought everyone was asleep."Yessica looked at the phone in her hands."Both of them noticed," Lewis said. "Independently. Within two days.""They're observant children.""Yes. Because you raised them to be." He kept his voice quiet. "Yessica. Talk to me."She set the phone on the nightstand. Turned it face-down. Crossed h
[POV: Lewis] [Location: Edinburgh — Lewis's House, Ethan's Week]Ethan was in the garden when Lewis came looking for him.Not doing anything in particular. Just sitting on the back step with his elbows on his knees, watching something in the middle distance that Lewis couldn't identify. That was Ethan's thinking posture — perfectly still, completely inward, the look of a person running through something complicated without external evidence.He looked up when he heard the door."Hey, Daddy.""Hey." Lewis sat on the step beside him. "What are you thinking about?""Architecture," Ethan said. Then, after a pause: "And other stuff.""Tell me about the other stuff."Ethan looked back at the garden. "Is this the one-on-one conversation? Miss Mama said you were doing them.""Yes.""Good." He said it without ceremony. "I was wondering when you'd get to me."Lewis registered the mild implied critique and filed it honestly. "Sorry it took this long.""It's okay. Things have been happening." Et
[POV: Lewis] [Location: Edinburgh — Grace's Bedroom]Grace's bedroom had a system.Lewis had known this in the abstract for years — Yessica had mentioned it, the other children had complained about it — but sitting in it for the first time with nowhere else to be, he understood it properly.The books were organized by colour, not subject. The drawings on the wall were arranged by what Grace called "feeling" — the cheerful ones near the window, the serious ones above the desk, the ones that were "both at the same time" in the corner by the door. Her stuffed animals occupied a specific shelf in a specific order that Grace had explained once and expected never to explain again."The green ones are on the left because green is a morning colour," Grace told him now, following his gaze."What's an afternoon colour?"She considered this with the focused attention she brought to questions she found genuinely worth answering. "Yellow. Or that orange that's almost yellow. Not proper orange. Pr
POV: Yessica | Location: New YorkThe Harrington dinner was three days after the anniversary.Lewis mentioned it Tuesday morning with the same tone he used to mention board meetings — logistical, assumed, her attendance implied without being requested."Eight o'clock. Le Bernardin. David Harrington
POV: Yessica | Location: New YorkShe should have gone back to sleep.She knew that. She was lying in the dark in the guest room with her hand on her stomach and her phone face-down and the silver box on the nightstand, and the rational thing — the self-preserving thing — was to put the pillow over
POV: Yessica | Location: New YorkSeven days.Seven days since the test, and she still hadn't told him.She'd planned it a hundred different ways. The right moment, the right words, the right version of Lewis sitting across from her long enough to actually hear it. But the right moment kept not arri
POV: Yessica | Location: New York"Conference call in twenty."Lewis didn't look up from his phone.Yessica set his plate down. Eggs perfect, bacon crispy, coffee at exactly the temperature he liked. Three years of mornings and he still hadn't learned to say thank you like he meant it."I made your







