Elara

Silas came back three days later, and this time he didn’t bother with the car.

He knocked on our door like he’d been invited, two patient knocks that felt worse than if he’d pounded on it. I’d been dreading it since the night on the steps, half hoping the card in my jacket pocket had been some kind of fluke or a  threat that would lose its nerve. It hadn’t. I could feel it there every time I put the jacket on, a small square of card that seemed to weigh more than it should.

I opened the door slowly with my sister Sophie’s  homework spread across the kitchen table behind me. There he was, dry despite the drizzle, an umbrella held over him by someone I hadn’t even noticed standing at his shoulder.

“Miss Vance.” He smiled like we were old friends. “May I come in?”

“No.” I kept my hand on the door frame. “You can say whatever you came to say from right there.”

Something flickered across his face, amusement maybe, or the beginning of it. He probably wasn’t used to being told no. I could see that plainly, in the way his jaw tightened just slightly before the smile smoothed back over it.

“Direct. I respect that.” He tucked his hands behind his back. “Very well. I’ll be brief. I’ve reviewed your father’s estate more closely, and I’m afraid the debt is worse than what my associates conveyed the other night. Interest accrues quickly on unsecured obligations like his.”

My stomach turned over. “How much worse?”

“Does it matter? You couldn’t pay the original sum. The new one is simply beside the point now.” He said it so lightly, like we were discussing the weather instead of a number that could bury my entire family. “Which is why I’m here myself, rather than sending men with hammers. I’d like to offer you a way out that doesn’t involve losing your home.”

“I already told the man in your car I wasn’t interested in whatever that agency is.”

“That’s not what I’m offering.” He tilted his head, studying me closely. “I’m offering you a position. In my household. Domestic work, nothing beneath you. Room and board provided, a modest wage on top of it, and in exchange, I forgive the debt entirely. All of it. Tonight, if you’d like.”

For one terrible second, I actually considered it. That was the worst part, how quickly my mind ran the numbers, how it weighed the rent and Sophie’s school fees against my pride and came up short on the side of pride. I hated him a little more for making me do that math at all.

“No,” I said again, quieter this time, because I meant it more.

“No?” He repeated the word like it tasted strange in his mouth. “You understand what you’re refusing. Your sister is what, fifteen? Sixteen? Old enough to understand what it means to lose the roof over her head.”

“Don’t talk about my sister.”

“I’m simply being honest with you, Miss Vance. Someone should be.” He stepped half a pace closer, and even through the doorway I felt the wrongness of him, something under the expensive coat and the reasonable voice that didn’t sit right with the rest of him. “You’re proud. I understand pride. I was young once too. But pride doesn’t keep the heat on.”

“And working in your house does?” My voice cracked, just slightly, and I hated that too. “What exactly would I be doing for you, that’s worth forty two thousand dollars and whatever new number you’ve decided on since?”

He didn’t answer right away. That silence told me more than anything he could have said.

“I think,” he said finally, “that you’ll come around to a better understanding of your options. People usually do, once the alternative becomes real enough to touch.”

“Is that a threat?”

“It’s an observation.” He straightened his coat, unbothered, like this conversation had cost him nothing at all, while it had taken something out of me I wasn’t sure I’d get back. “I won’t trouble you again this week. Take the time. Think about your sister, think about your father, and ask yourself honestly whether stubbornness has ever once solved a problem like this one.”

He turned to go, then paused, glancing back over his shoulder with that same terrible warmth in his eyes.

“You still have my card, I trust.”

I didn’t answer. He didn’t wait for one. He walked back down the steps under his borrowed umbrella, unhurried, like a man with nowhere else he needed to be and all the time in the world to wait for me to break.

I shut the door and stood with my back against it, breathing harder than I should have been for someone who hadn’t moved an inch. From the kitchen, Sophie’s voice drifted out, half distracted.

“Was that the landlord again?”

“Something like that.” I pressed my palm flat against my chest, willing my heart to slow down. “Finish your homework.”

I didn’t tell her about the number. I didn’t tell her about the card, either, though I could feel it through the fabric of my jacket where it hung by the door, patiently waiting.

Whatever he thought I was going to come around to, I told myself I wouldn’t. I told myself that standing there, hand still trembling slightly against my collarbone, and some small, exhausted part of me almost believed it.

Admist all, the surrogacy agency’s card was still in my pocket. And underneath the fear and anger, a colder thought had already started to take root.

What if there was no version of this where I got to keep saying no.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​