27. Marisol
MARISOL
I pick Wednesday morning because it's clean.
Not because I'm cruel — because Wednesday is the day Graham has back-to-back calls until noon, which means Isla is already at school, which means there are no witnesses to the part where I dismantle something we built together and call it a practical decision.
I've been rehearsing the words since Monday.
I know exactly how I want to say them. Calm.
Decided. Not a conversation, just information.
I find him in his office at seven-fifteen, jacket already on, coffee already cold beside the keyboard.
He looks up when I knock on the open door, and his gray eyes do the thing where they read the whole room in one sweep — me, my posture, the fact that I'm standing in the doorway instead of walking in.
"I'm leaving Friday," I say. "End of the week. I've already drafted the transition notes for whoever takes over Isla's routine."
He doesn't move. "Sit down."
"I'm not sitting down. This isn't a negotiation."
"Marisol—"
"I've thought it through. The timing is workable. Isla's been doing better with you directly, she doesn't need me as a buffer anymore, and Dr. Patel can help manage the transition if you loop her in early. I'll have everything documented before I go."
He closes his laptop. Slowly, the way he does things when he's deciding how much force to use. "I'll double your current rate. Full benefits extended through the end of the year, your call on hours."
"No."
"A title change. Senior Household Director, whatever you want it called, it doesn't matter?—"
"Graham." I look at him directly. "Stop."
"You're not giving me a reason."
"I gave you several. Two weeks ago. Last week. The week before that." I shift my weight against the doorframe. "You just keep repackaging the offer and waiting for me to take it."
He stands up, and when Graham Kade stands up in a room it changes the geometry of everything — six-foot-three of barely managed frustration, sharp eyes, dark hair slightly undone from where he's been running a hand through it.
"Isla needs consistency. You know that. Dr. Patel has said it twelve different ways and you've been in every one of those conversations. "
"Isla needs you to be consistent. Not me." I hold my ground. "There's a difference and you know it."
"She won't eat breakfast without you at the table."
"She will. She'll adjust. Kids do."
"She's not just any kid?—"
"No, she's not. Which is exactly why she needs to know that the people in her life are there because they choose to be, not because they're on a contract that keeps getting extended." My voice comes out steadier than I feel. "I'm not doing her any favors by staying."
He crosses the room in four steps and stops at the desk between us, both hands flat on the surface, leaning forward.
"Then stay because you choose to. Not because of the contract.
Not because of the salary." He pauses, and what comes next costs him something visible.
"Stay because this is where you want to be. "
The room goes very quiet.
"That's not a fair thing to say to me," I tell him.
"I'm done being fair. Fair got us nowhere."
"Graham—"
"You're the only person in this house who tells me the truth. You're the only person Isla trusts completely. You're—" He stops. Starts again, lower. "You walked in here weeks ago with two bags and a box and this place hasn't been the same since and you know that."
"I know that," I say. "That's why I have to go."
Something moves behind his eyes that isn't anger and isn't strategy — it's rawer than both, and he doesn't try to cover it, which might be the most unsettling thing he's done since I moved in.
I turn toward the hallway.
"I'll increase Isla's therapy sessions," he says, behind me. "Three times a week instead of one. Full support structure, whatever Dr. Patel recommends?—"
"Stop trying to solve it."
"It's what I do."
"I know." I stop walking but I don't turn around.
"That's the whole problem, Graham. You solve things.
You restructure them, reframe them, throw resources at them until they stop being uncomfortable.
And I've watched you get better at not doing that with Isla, I have, but you're standing in that office right now treating me like a gap in the org chart. "
Silence.
Then, from the hallway — a sound.
Small. Barely anything. The specific quality of quiet that isn't empty but occupied.
I turn.
Isla is standing just outside the office door in her school uniform, backpack already on, one sock higher than the other.
Her eyes are wide and her face is doing the careful, controlled nothing that I know by now means the opposite of nothing.
She's been there long enough to hear. I can see it in the set of her small shoulders, the way she's holding Gerald's ear in her fist like an anchor.
"Isla." My voice comes out soft. "Hey."
She doesn't answer.
I cross to her and crouch down. "You're ready early."
"Rosa said the car's coming." Her voice is very small. "Are you leaving?"
"We can talk about it after school, okay? Right now you need to?—"
"Are you leaving," she says again, and this time it isn't a question.
I look at her face. Those hazel eyes, open and frightened and trying very hard to be brave about it, and I feel the answer I rehearsed for Graham dissolve into something I don't have words for.
"Go get in the car," I say gently. "I'll be here when you get back."
She holds my gaze for a moment, deciding whether that's enough. Then she turns and walks down the hallway without running, which is somehow worse than if she'd cried.
I stand up.
I walk to my room, pull the weekender bag down from the shelf, and set it open on my bed in plain sight this time. No more testing. No more pretending I'm just looking at apartment listings out of idle curiosity.
I start packing in earnest, and I leave the door open, and I don't stop.