29. Jenna
Jenna
“—you can’t call it stealing,” Dustin says, pushing up from the couch so fast the cushion springs back behind him. “It was my dad’s car. I borrowed it.”
Hannah signs something at the same time. I haven’t learned enough to know exactly what she says, but I catch “fast” and “careful.”
Dustin points at her like she’s just proven his case.
“See? She agrees with me.”
Hannah’s mother exhales through her nose, already tired in a way that has nothing to do with the hour. “That is not what she said. She said you weren’t driving fast and you were very careful.”
“Exactly!” Dustin huffs.
Across the room, Dominic doesn’t move—but I feel the shift in him anyway, the subtle tightening at my waist where his hand rests like he’s anchoring himself to something solid.
“Dustin,” he says mildly, “you took Dad’s car without asking.”
“I had the keys. I borrowed it.”
“You can’t borrow things without permission,” Dominic says.
“And you don’t have a license,” Hannah’s father snaps. “You took our daughter. It was outright dangerous.”
Dustin opens his mouth, then closes it again like he’s trying to find a version of reality that will survive this meeting.
Hannah signs something fast, hands cutting through the air.
“She says she went with me,” he translates quickly, relief flashing across his face. “So it’s not like I kidnapped her or anything.”
“That is exactly what it is like,” her father says.
“It is a little bit what it is like,” Esteban mutters under his breath, and Helena immediately elbows him.
The program director lifts both hands. “Let’s slow down—”
“No,” Hannah’s father says, leaning forward. “We’re not slowing down. We’re talking about judgment. About risk. About what happens when someone with no right to do so takes my daughter off this property.”
Dustin’s shoulders fold inward.
“I didn’t make her go,” Dustin says again, quieter now.
Hannah signs, more deliberate this time, her eyes fixed on her parents.
“She says that too,” Dustin adds. “She says I didn’t make her.”
“I understood her,” her father replies.
“Then listen,” Dustin says, and there’s something raw in it now, something that doesn’t fit the blazer or the tie or the carefully rehearsed confidence.
Hannah reaches for his hand.
The contact changes the room more than any argument has.
“I’m not a bad boyfriend,” Dustin says, like he needs it recorded somewhere official.
“No one said you were,” the program director says quickly.
“He did.” Dustin points across the table at Hannah’s father. “He thinks I’m bad for her.”
“I think what happened was dangerous,” her father corrects.
“I know I did wrong!” Dustin’s voice cracks on the last word, anger and humiliation colliding so hard it almost knocks the air out of the room. “Everyone keeps saying it. I know.”
He looks at the floor, at his hands, at anywhere but the faces watching him fail.
Helena makes a sound like she’s been punched in the chest. She moves toward him, but Hannah’s mother stands first.
“This is exactly why we need to discuss boundaries,” she says, her voice strained with her own worry. “The impulse control. The inability to recognize—”
“Recognize what?” Helena interrupts, and the Spanish lilt in her English sharpens. “That he loves her? That they made a mistake together? You think your daughter has no agency in this?”
“Don’t put words in my mouth.”
“Someone needs to put sense in it, then.” Helena’s hands flutter at her sides. “You’re speaking about my son like he is a danger. Like his heart is something to be managed.”
“He took her in a car he cannot legally drive—”
“He drove eleven blocks,” Esteban booms, and the volume makes everyone flinch except Dominic, who doesn’t move, who seems to be holding himself in check by some internal calculus I can’t see. “Eleven blocks with the caution of a funeral procession. You want to crucify him for this?”
“I want him to understand consequences,” Hannah’s father says, and he’s standing now too, the table between them suddenly too small for four adults who’ve forgotten why they’re here. “I want my daughter in a situation where her safety isn’t dependent on someone else’s judgment calls.”
Hannah’s hands move, furious and precise, but her father doesn’t look at her. He keeps his eyes on Esteban, on Helena, on the battle he’s already decided he’s fighting.
“She’s saying something,” Dustin says, his voice thin and desperate. “She’s saying—”
“I heard her,” her father snaps. “She wants to stay. She always wants to stay. That doesn’t mean she’s equipped to assess the risk.”
The words land like a slap. Hannah’s hands drop to her lap, and her face crumples in a way that hurts my soul. It’s the devastation of someone who’s been dismissed so many times she’s learned to expect it.
The room fractures into noise. But it’s Dominic’s voice that rises above the din.
“Enough,” he booms.
Hannah’s father stops mid-breath. Esteban’s mouth closes. Even Helena, who was reaching for Dustin, goes still.
“We’re not doing this,” he says. “Not like this. Not with Hannah sitting right here while you talk about her like she’s furniture.”
Hannah’s father opens his mouth, but Dominic holds up one hand—not a request for silence, just a statement that he’s not finished.
“Your daughter has been signing for ten minutes,” Dominic says. “You’ve looked at her twice. You’ve answered her zero times. If you want to discuss her safety, you start with her voice. Or you don’t start at all.”
The program director clears her throat, a small sound that somehow cuts through the tension. “Perhaps,” she says carefully, “we should take a brief pause. Fifteen minutes. Everyone can collect themselves, and we can resume with a clearer structure.”
She’s looking at Dominic when she says it, reading him the way I’ve learned to read him—the stillness that means he’s calculating seven moves ahead, the set of his jaw that means he’s already decided which bridges he’s willing to burn.
“Fine,” Hannah’s father says, but he’s already losing conviction, the righteousness draining from his posture as he looks at his daughter’s face for what might be the first time since he arrived.
Hannah doesn’t move. Her hands stay folded in her lap, but her eyes are on Dominic, something complicated moving through her expression—gratitude, maybe, or recognition. Someone finally saw what was happening to her.
Dustin is the first to break, his shoulders shaking with a sob he’s been holding since he pushed up from that couch. Helena folds him into her arms with a ferocity that makes my throat tight.
I move to Dominic’s side without deciding to, my hand finding his elbow, my thumb pressing into the tension there. He doesn’t look at me, but his hand covers mine, holding me in place like I’m the thing keeping him from saying something worse.
“Fifteen minutes,” the program director repeats, already gathering her folders. “Kitchen’s available. There’s coffee.”
People disperse in fragments—Hannah’s mother touching her daughter’s shoulder and being shrugged off, Esteban muttering something in Spanish that sounds like prayer and profanity mixed together.
Hannah stays seated, her hands finally moving again, signing something to Dustin that makes him nod against his mother’s shoulder.
Dominic and I hang back a moment as the room empties out. Dominic releases my hand, his posture instantly shifting as he catches the program director just as she reaches the hallway threshold.
“I apologize for my parents, and for the escalation,” he says, his voice perfectly modulated. “Emotions are running high, understandably. But before we sit back down to litigate my brother’s relationship, I’d like a moment to speak with you privately about the facility’s security issues.”
The director pauses, her clipboard pressed tightly to her chest. “Mr. Cruz, our security protocols are standard for a supported-independence tier—”
“And they were breached,” Dominic counters smoothly, leaving absolutely no room for debate.
“Which exposes Round Hill to a significant liability threat from Hannah’s family.
I have a proposal that addresses your physical security gaps and entirely neutralizes that liability, without requiring a punitive transfer for any resident.
Just you and me, five minutes, before we return to the personal issues at stake. ”
She studies him for a long moment. I see the exact second she concedes.
“Five minutes,” she agrees, nodding toward the corridor. “My office is just down the hall.”
I step back, giving him the space to execute the strategy we drafted at three in the morning. “I’ll go check on your family,” I tell him quietly.
The corporate mask drops for exactly one second.
He looks down at me, the rigid tension around his eyes easing just a fraction as genuine gratitude bleeds through.
“Thank you, Jen,” he murmurs. He leans in, pressing a warm, lingering kiss to the side of my temple before turning to follow the director down the hall.
The kitchen of Round Hill House’s administrative wing is aggressively beige, a sterile contrast to the heavy emotional weather of the morning. I find Esteban pacing near the industrial refrigerator while Helena leans against the counter, her hands covering her face.
I don’t offer empty platitudes. I have no authority here, no biological right to insert myself into a decades-long family dynamic.
But I do know how to execute a beverage service, and right now, I desperately need the utility of a task.
I pull paper cups from a dispenser and locate the commercial coffee machine and a box of assorted teas.
As I work, pouring hot water and tearing sugar packets, I keep my thoughts strictly compartmentalized.
I understand Hannah’s parents’ fear. Risk mitigation is my entire career; I know exactly how terrifying a broken protocol can be when it involves someone you love.
But their panic is causing collateral damage, and I find myself wishing everyone in that conference room could just find a clearer head before permanent fractures form.