Chapter 21 #2
Being called into an assignment meeting is not unusual, but the absence of any detail catches my attention.
My editor is normally specific enough to give me a company name, a subject, or at least some indication of why she wants me in the room.
I type a quick reply confirming that I will be there.
Before I can close the message, another one appears.
This one’s significant. Come in before you commit to anything else.
I lean back in my chair and read the sentence again.
From the dining room, Theo begins humming to himself while moving something across the table. A few seconds later, I hear the soft rattle of cardboard and the crinkle of a snack wrapper. Whatever is waiting for me tomorrow can wait until 9:30.
I close the laptop and head back toward the kitchen to make sure Theo has actually started his homework instead of redesigning the pulley.
By 5:40, Theo has finished most of his homework, abandoned the pulley on the corner of the dining table, and convinced himself that apple slices somehow qualify as dinner preparation. I am clearing the kitchen counter when the doorbell rings.
Theo looks up from his worksheet.
“Is that Aunt Emma?”
“Probably not,” I tell him as I cross the living room.
“She said she might come after dinner.”
I open the door and find Maya standing on the porch with two iced coffees in one hand and her sunglasses pushed onto the top of her head.
“I brought caffeine,” Maya says.
“Which means I’m either a very good friend or avoiding my own house.”
I step aside to let her in.
“With twins, those can be the same thing.”
Maya laughs as she walks inside.
“Tom has them at soccer practice. They were arguing in the car about who got the green water bottle, and I decided my marriage would survive better if I disappeared for forty-five minutes.”
Theo appears at the edge of the kitchen.
“Aunt Maya.”
“There’s my favorite engineer,” Maya says, setting the coffees down.
Theo frowns. “I’m not an engineer.”
“Not yet.”
He considers that for a second, then points toward the dining table.
“My pulley works now.”
Maya glances at me. “Should I ask?”
“No,” I tell her.
Theo ignores me. “The string was wrong.”
Maya nods solemnly. “Tragic.”
“I fixed it.”
“I had every confidence in you,” Maya says.
Theo seems satisfied with that and heads back to his homework. I hand Maya one of the stools at the kitchen island, then take the coffee she brought me.
“You really came all the way over here because of a water-bottle argument?”
“That and because I needed to complain about work to someone who understands why adults with expensive degrees still refuse to read an email before replying to it.”
“Ah. There it is.”
Maya takes a long sip of her coffee.
“One of my editors sent a pitch deck back this afternoon because she thought the headline was too aggressive. It was the same headline she approved yesterday.”
“Maybe she experienced personal growth overnight.”
“She experienced selective amnesia.”
I laugh.
Maya has been in California long enough that I sometimes forget there was ever a version of my life here without her.
She and Tom moved west less than two years after I did when Maya took a senior editorial role with her publication’s Los Angeles bureau.
What started as a career move became permanent somewhere between the twins starting preschool, Tom changing firms, and Maya deciding she preferred complaining about traffic to complaining about winter.
She looks toward the dining table.
“How much homework does he have?”
“Enough to keep him from taking apart another lamp.”
Maya turns back to me. “He did that again?”
“Not the whole lamp.”
“Sophie.”
“He wanted to see why the switch worked.”
Maya stares at me for a beat.
“Between you, Emma, and me, that child has three adults monitoring him at any given moment, and somehow he still manages to dismantle the house.”
“Tom makes four.”
“Tom encourages him.”
“That’s true.”
From the dining room, Theo calls, “Uncle Tom said I can help build the shelves.”
Maya raises her voice.
“Uncle Tom says a lot of things when I’m not around.”
Theo laughs.
I take another sip of coffee.
Maya glances toward my laptop sitting closed in the office doorway.
“Are you done for the day?”
“Mostly. I have to go into the office tomorrow morning.”
“For what?”
“New assignment meeting.”
Maya’s brows lift.
“Anything interesting?”
“They didn’t say.”
“That’s ominous.”
“It’s probably not.”
Maya gives me a look.
“They don’t drag senior correspondents into conference rooms at 9:30 because someone needs a restaurant review.”
“I don’t write restaurant reviews.”
“You know what I mean.”
Before I can answer, my phone lights up on the counter with Emma’s name.
Maya glances at it.
“Speaking of the other member of the surveillance team.”
I answer and put the phone on speaker.
“Hey.”
“Tell Theo I’m running late,” Emma says over the sound of movement in the background.
“One of my discharge plans exploded at 4:30, and apparently everyone remembered I exist at the same time.”
“You’re still coming?”
“If I escape this building before midnight.”
Maya leans toward the phone.
“Your nephew has already informed us that your hospital computers are terrible.”
There is a pause.
Then Emma says, “I’m going to stop discussing work in front of him.”
“That would be wise,” I tell her.
From the dining table, Theo calls, “Aunt Emma, are you coming for dinner?”
Emma’s voice softens immediately.
“I’m trying, buddy.”
“Okay.”
“I’ll text your mom when I leave.”
“Okay.”
I take the phone off speaker as Emma says goodbye, then set it back on the counter. Maya watches me for a moment before glancing toward Theo again.
“You know, for someone who came out here planning to stay with her sister for a few months, you’ve built yourself a pretty crowded little life.”
I follow her gaze. Theo is bent over his worksheet, one hand curled around a pencil, his hair falling over his forehead.
“Yeah,” I say quietly. “I have.”
Maya nudges my coffee toward me.
“Then drink that before it melts. Tomorrow’s mysterious meeting can ruin your morning when it gets here.”
I smile and take another sip while Theo calls from the table to ask whether spelling words count as homework if he already knows how to spell them.
By 9PM, the house has settled into its nighttime rhythm.
Theo is freshly showered and tucked beneath the navy comforter on his bed, one arm curled around the stuffed bear he insists he is too old to need but still refuses to move from his pillow.
His pulley project sits on the dresser now, repaired enough to satisfy him for the night.
I sit on the edge of the mattress and smooth the blanket over his legs.
“Did you put your spelling sheet back in your backpack?” I ask.
Theo nods.
“And my math.”
“Lunchbox?”
“Kitchen.”
“Toothbrush?”
He gives me a look. “Mom.”
“I’m checking.”
“You watched me brush.”
“That doesn’t mean I can’t verify.”
Theo smiles and sinks deeper into the pillow. For a few seconds, he studies the pulley across the room.
“Do you think I can make it better tomorrow?” he asks.
“The pulley?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m sure you can.”
Theo wrinkles his nose.
“But what if I mess it up?”
“Then you fix it.”
“What if I break it more?”
I tuck a loose corner of the blanket beneath his arm.
“Then you figure out what happened and try again.”
He considers that quietly.
“Can you always fix stuff?”
The question is simple enough that I almost answer too quickly.
“Not everything,” I tell him.
“Sometimes you can’t make something exactly the way it was before.”
Theo’s brow pulls together.
“So it stays broken?”
“Not necessarily.”
He looks at me.
“Sometimes you build it differently,” I say.
“It can still work. It just might not look the way you thought it would.”
Theo thinks about that for another moment before giving a small nod.
“Okay.”
I lean down and kiss his forehead. “Okay.”
“Love you, Mom.”
“I love you too.”
I reach for the lamp.
“Door open a little,” Theo says.
“I know.”
I switch off the light and leave the door cracked the same few inches I leave it every night.
Twenty minutes later, I pass his room on my way downstairs and stop when I realize he is asleep. I step inside quietly. The glow from the hallway reaches just far enough to catch his face against the pillow. His lashes rest against his cheeks, and his dark hair has fallen across his forehead again.
I brush it back gently.
There are days when I see mostly myself in him.
The shape of his smile. The stubborn set of his mouth when he has decided he is right.
The way he curls onto his side when he sleeps.
Tonight, the resemblance is harder to ignore; the dark hair.
The blue eyes hidden now beneath closed lids.
The strong little line beginning to form through his features as he gets older.
You have your father’s face.
The thought comes without warning, but it is not unfamiliar. I have never lied to myself about where Theo comes from. I have simply learned how to live with Julian Blackwell existing somewhere beyond the boundaries of this house, while Theo grows safely inside them.
I smooth the blanket once more, then leave the room and pull the door back to its usual narrow opening.
***
At 9:27 the next morning, I walk into the editorial conference room with coffee in one hand and my notebook tucked under the other arm.