Chapter 26 #2
Marin approaches. She offers her hand, which I take.
"I'm glad you're recovering well," she says. Her voice is warm without being excessive. She's looking at me with a directness that I'll give her—she doesn't look away, doesn't perform sympathy, doesn't oversell the moment. "I've been thinking about you."
And there it is.
The thing I can't argue with. The thing that's impossible to dismiss and impossible to fully trust. She's been thinking about me.
Probably true. Probably genuine. And also—possibly—strategic in a way she might not even recognize as strategic anymore, because the line between who Marin is and what Marin was trained to do may have blurred past the point of her own visibility.
"Thank you," I say.
Luke appears at my shoulder with the specific proximity he uses when he's standing next to me, without looking like he is standing next to me on purpose. I feel his hand at the small of my back, brief and warm.
When Linda distracts Marin for a moment, I turn toward Luke just enough for him to hear me. I keep my voice low and my face neutral. “Don’t let her set the pace.”
“She doesn’t.” His reply is equally low, and his expression gives nothing away.
“We do.”
"Marin," he says, nodding once.
"Luke." She nods back. The exchange is civil. Measured on both sides, for different reasons.
We move toward the dining room.
LUKE
Mack is at dinner, which helps.
He takes up enough space—physically, conversationally—that the table doesn't feel like an interrogation.
He tells a story about Shane that has my mother covering her mouth to keep from laughing, my father leaning forward as if he's hearing evidence in court, and Brandon losing his composure entirely at the punchline.
Marin laughs too.
That's the thing about her. She laughs in the right places.
She asks Mom about the photographs on the sideboard—genuine curiosity, not performance—and Mom shows her the one from my first amateur fight, which is mortifying, and Marin studies it for a moment and says, "He has the same stance now," and Mom beams.
She's observant. Attentive. She listens the way trained people listen—tracking everything, missing nothing, filing it away for future reference or use.
I watch Andi watch her.
Andi is sitting two seats down from Marin, which is far enough for observation and close enough to hear everything.
She's contributing to the conversation naturally—laughing at Mack's story, asking Brandon a question about a project he mentioned, eating with the careful management of someone whose ribs still hurt on the right side when she reaches.
But she's also running a second track. I can see it in the slight angle of her attention, the way her eyes move to Marin at the end of each exchange rather than the beginning.
She's not hostile. She's watching.
After dinner, my mother is doing what she does with dessert, which involves approximately seven opinions about whether the coffee is strong enough.
Kelly comes downstairs to join us. She's taller than I remember from our last backyard gathering. She’s fifteen now, something settled in her face that wasn't there before.
She's wearing a Georgia State sweatshirt that's two sizes too big and carrying a textbook, which means she came down for a reason and found a reason to stay. She stops when she sees the full table.
"I didn't know people were coming," she says. To my mother, not the room.
"I should have told you," Mom says. "Come sit. There's pie."
Kelly's eyes move around the table the way a kid's eyes move when they're doing a quick assessment—who's safe, who's neutral, who's unknown.
They land on Brandon, whom she knows. Then on me, whom she knows better.
Then Andi, which produces a small nod of recognition. Then Marin, whom she doesn't know.
She sits at the end of the table near my mother and accepts the pie.
"This is Kelly," Brandon says to Marin. "She’s my little sister. She lives here now."
“Actually, she’s my little sister,” I interject and wink at Kelly. She smiles and lowers her face, as usual. But she feels the love from my family, and that’s what matters.
"Almost officially," Mom says, in the specific tone she uses when she's managing something that costs her to manage.
She sets the coffee pot down and smooths her hands on her pants.
"We keep hitting paperwork delays. The placement agency keeps requesting additional documentation—something new every few weeks.
Our attorney says it's not unusual, but—" She stops.
"Well. It's been longer than we expected.
We expected to have the adoption finalized by now. "
Kelly is looking at her pie.
She knows about the delays. Of course she does. She's fifteen, and she lives in this house, and she understands that *expected to have it finalized by now* means something has been in the way, even if no one has told her exactly what.
"It'll happen," my father says. The quiet certainty of a man who has decided it will and is not entertaining other possibilities.
"It will," Mom agrees. She puts her hand briefly on Kelly's shoulder. “She’s already our daughter, regardless of paperwork. We’d just like to have her last name officially changed.”
Kelly doesn't look up from the pie, but she goes slightly less tense under it, which is what matters.
I watch Marin during this exchange.
She's listening. Of course she's listening—she listens to everything, tracks everything, files everything. Her expression is composed and appropriate. A small sound of sympathy when Mom mentions the delays. Her eyes move to Kelly with what reads as genuine warmth.
Nothing visible. Nothing I can point to.
Just Marin, listening, in the room where my parents are describing a process that keeps getting blocked and can't explain why, while a fifteen-year-old girl tries not to look like she's counting the months.
After dessert, Brandon and Marin end up at the far end of the room near the bookshelf. Not deliberately, it seems. Just the drift of conversation.
My brother is in love with her.
Not infatuated. Not interested. In love. I can see it in the specific quality of his attention—the way he watches her face when she's speaking to someone else, the half-second of pride when she says something that lands. He's not performing this for anyone. He has no idea I'm watching.
Andi appears at my elbow.
She doesn't say anything. She just stands there beside me, looking at the same thing I'm looking at.
After a moment: "He's happy," she whispers.
"Yeah."
"That's the worst part," she says. Not bitterly. Just precisely.
She moves away to offer to help my mother with the coffee, which Mom will refuse because Andi’s on crutches. Some things don’t change.
Later, in the car going home, we're quiet for the first ten minutes. Andi has her head back against the seat, looking at the streetlights. The cast takes up most of the footwell on her side. She's been on her feet too long today, and I know it, and she won't say it.
"She said something to me," Andi says finally.
"Tell me."
"After dessert. We ended up at the counter together while your mother was looking for the cream. Just the two of us for about forty-five seconds." Andi is still looking at the streetlights. "She said, 'I know this has been a hard year for you. I want you to know I've tried to help where I could.'"
I wait.
"It was the right thing to say," Andi continues. "The exact right thing. The tone was right. The timing was right. It wasn't too much." She turns her head slightly toward me. "That's what keeps stopping me. She's never wrong. Every word she says is exactly calibrated."
"That's her skill," I say.
"I know." Andi looks back at the window. "I just can't tell anymore whether her skill is being applied to help us or to something else. And I've been trying to tell for months." She pauses. "Usually I can tell."
"She had you at a disadvantage. She knew your situation coming in."
"Yes." Andi goes quiet for a moment. "Luke—the board communications. The language in them. Some of those recommendations were in writing before Marin was formally involved."
I glance at her.
"I'm going to talk to Bill," she says.
"Okay."
"Soon."
"Okay." I reach over and take her hand. She lets me. "What do you need from me right now?"
She thinks about it.
"Keep watching Brandon," she says. "Not for what she's doing. For what he's not seeing."