Chapter 19 #2
We’re sitting around the oak table—the one Dad built with his own hands, the one that’s seen every birthday and every heartbreak. It feels solid under my elbows, a structural certainty in a week that’s been nothing but seismic shifts.
“I’m not doing it,” I say, cutting into the lasagna with more force than the pasta requires.
The fork clicks against the ceramic plate.
“I refuse to stay in the blue room at the mansion and stare at the wall until I wither away. I’d rather return to work on Monday.
” Needing professional clothes was my only setback, but with that out of the way—thanks to thrift shopping—I’m ready.
Lily looks up from her plate, a string of mozzarella hanging from her fork.
“Harl, you just had a nervous breakdown on a national stage—well, a Lake Forest stage, which is basically the same thing but with more sequins. Don’t you think you should take a beat?
Go to the beach? Drink something with an umbrella in it? ”
“Work is the beat, Lil,” I say, and I mean it.
I think of the county office. I think of the fluorescent lights and the smell of industrial coffee and the stacks of folders that represent real human crises—crises that don’t care about seating charts.
“I’ve spent months being a ‘Thompson-in-training.’ I’ve spent months being managed.
I need to be a social worker again. Mrs. Delgado has a hearing in two weeks.
Her husband is trying to use her lack of stable housing against her.
I need to make sure that the Thompson grant money is sitting in the right account so her attorneys can bury him in paperwork. ”
I take a bite of the lasagna. It’s rich and salty and tastes like home.
“And Skyler?” Maria asks softly. She’s watching me, her eyes observant. “He’s been calling the house every hour. He left a message for your father, too.”
“He can talk to the dial tone,” I say.
As if on cue, my phone vibrates on the counter behind me.
It’s a rhythmic, insistent buzz—a digital heartbeat that won’t stop.
I don’t even look at it. I know the number.
I know the pattern. I know the tone of the texts he’s sending—that desperate, pleading management voice that thinks every problem has a compromise if you just negotiate long enough.
“I’m not pausing my life for him,” I continue. “He had his chance to be a partner, but he chose to be an heir. He can live in his museum, and I’ll live in the world.”
Dad clears his throat. He’s been quiet, focusing on his food, but I can see the gears turning in his head. “The guest room is fine, Harley, but it’s cramped. And Maria needs the space for her sewing projects if she’s going to keep the bookstore’s inventory moving.”
My heart sinks slightly. I don’t want to be a burden. “I’ll find an apartment. I’ve already started looking at the local listings—”
“I’m not finished,” Dad says, holding up a hand.
“I’ve been thinking… I’m sleeping on the couch anyway since the back surgery.
That bed in the guest room is hell on my spine.
I’m going to move my stuff out of the workshop’s office.
It’s got a separate entrance, its own little bathroom, and it’s quiet.
You can stay there. It’s yours as long as you need it. ”
“Dad, no. You love that office. It’s your sanctuary.”
“My sanctuary is wherever my family is safe,” he says, his voice final. “I’ll clear it out tonight. We can put the daybed in there, maybe some of those colorful rugs Lily likes. It won’t be a ‘suite,’ but the roof doesn’t leak and there isn’t a single calla lily in the zip code.”
Maria reaches into the pocket of her apron and pulls out a folded section of the local newspaper.
There are red circles all over the ‘Apartments for Rent’ column.
“I did some scouting after the thrift shop. There are a few places near the park. Modest, but they have character. One of them is above the bakery on 4th. Imagine waking up to the smell of sourdough instead of whatever French perfume Elaine sprays on her curtains.”
I look at the red circles. I look at my sister, who is already planning a housewarming party that involves cheap wine and a karaoke machine. I look at Maria and Dad, who are building a safety net underneath me without me even having to ask.
This is what a merger looks like. Not a joining of trust funds, but a pooling of strength.
“I’ll pay rent,” I say. Ironically, Skyler and I didn’t stay with my parents because of the commute, and now here I am.
I’m commuting and single after the worst months of my life.
If I’m going to stay here long-term, I could find a job closer to here, but I don’t want to leave my clients in the lurch.
“We’ll talk about that later,” Dad says, standing up to clear the plates. “Right now, you just focus on Mrs. Delgado. And on blocking that number. The sound of that phone is starting to irritate the dog.”
Lily grins. “I’m staying over this weekend. We’re going to watch bad movies, and I’m going to teach you how to make a sourdough starter. It’s a metaphor, Harl. Something that takes work but actually feeds you.”
I laugh, a real sound that vibrates in my chest. “I think I’d rather just stick to social work, Lil.”
“Fine. But I’m still staying.”
As I help Maria dry the dishes, the phone buzzes again. One long, persistent vibration—a voicemail. I imagine Skyler standing in the mahogany hallway, his voice breaking as he tells me how much he’s changed. I imagine the regret in his eyes.
I pick up the phone, walk to the trash can, and for a split second, I consider listening, just one last time. To see if he’s finally found his spine.
But then I look at my father, who is currently dragging a toolbox toward the workshop to build me a room. I look at Maria, who is circling a future for me in red ink.
I delete the message without listening. The silence that follows is the first genuine peace I’ve felt in months.
I’m sitting cross-legged on the twin bed in my childhood room. The duvet is a faded floral print that’s lost its crispness, but the cotton is soft against my skin. The only light comes from my phone, a cold blue glare that feels like a surgical instrument.
Lily is leaning against the doorframe, a glass of water in her hand. She’s watching me with the focused intensity of a bodyguard. “You doing okay? You’ve been staring at that screen for five minutes.”
“I’m performing an exorcism,” I say.
I open the contacts. Skyler. It’s a name that used to mean safety, but now it just looks like a brand I can’t afford. I hit the small ‘i’ in the corner. Scroll down.
Block this Caller.
The phone asks for confirmation. You will not receive phone calls, messages, or FaceTime from people on the block list.
“Good,” I whisper and tap the button.
The screen flickers. He’s gone. At least, from the immediate reach of my pocket.
Next comes social media. I unfriend, unfollow, and block.
I watch the photos of us disappear—the gala at the Art Institute, the weekend in Door County, the one where he’s kissing my cheek and I’m laughing at something he said.
They look like stills from a movie I’ve decided to walk out of.
I delete the shared accounts, the cloud storage, the digital footprints of a “merger” that never stood a chance.
“It’s not about being petty,” I tell Lily, looking up from the screen.
My eyes feel dry. “I just need to breathe. Every time it buzzes, I hear his ‘management’ tone. I hear him trying to find a compromise where everyone wins. But in his world, ‘everyone wins’ just means his mother doesn’t have a migraine and I lose a piece of myself. ”
Lily nods. “Digital hygiene. It’s like clearing out the mold, Harl. You can’t live in the house until the air is clean.”
I put the phone face down on the nightstand. The silence that follows isn’t the heavy, watchful silence of the Thompson mansion. It’s a light silence; it’s the absence of a weight I didn’t realize I was carrying.
I start to unpack the thrift store bags.
I open the closet doors, and the smell of my teenage years hit me—old paper, vanilla body spray, and the ghost of a cedar sachet Maria had tucked in there years ago.
I hang up the six-dollar Levi’s and the corduroy jacket.
I slide the flannel shirts onto mismatched hangers.
They sit alongside the artifacts of the girl I was before Skyler Thompson tried to draft a better version of me.
My old Northwestern University hoodie is there, the gray fleece worn thin at the elbows.
I pull it out and rub the fabric between my fingers.
I remember wearing this in the library at two a.m., fueled by caffeine and the desperate need to help people.
I remember the person who didn’t care about Valentino red or the height of a centerpiece.
I pull the hoodie on. It’s too big and the hood is floppy, but I feel like I can finally inhabit my own skin again.
Dad knocks on the door. He’s carrying a toolbox in one hand and a stack of clean towels in the other. “Workshop’s ready. I moved the desk into the corner and put the daybed by the window. The privacy curtains are up.”
I follow him out the back door and across the small yard.
The air is cool, carrying the scent of cut grass and the late-summer dampness of the earth.
The workshop is a separate building, a small timber-framed structure that Dad built twenty years ago.
It’s always been his world—a place of sawdust and sharp edges.
The small office at the back has been transformed.
The smell of cedar is overwhelming here; the clean, sharp scent feels like a disinfectant for the soul.
The daybed is covered in a heavy wool blanket, and the window looks out over the neighbor’s overgrown garden.
There are no silk drapes here, no silver urns.
Just the sound of the wind in the trees and the steady, grounding presence of my father’s tools on the other side of the wall.
“It’s perfect, Dad,” I say, and for the first time in days, the lump in my throat feels like gratitude instead of grief.
“I put a space heater in the corner just in case,” Dad says, setting the towels on the bed. He pauses, looking around the small room. “It’s not Lake Forest, Harley.”
“I know,” I say, sitting on the edge of the bed. The mattress is firm. It doesn’t have a three-thousand-dollar topper. “That’s why I like it.”
He nods, gives my shoulder a quick, awkward squeeze, and heads back out.
I lay down and stare at the ceiling. I can hear the house settling across the yard—the occasional creak of the porch, the rhythmic tinkle of the wind chimes. These are the sounds of a life that doesn’t need to be managed. They are the sounds of a home that is content with its own imperfections.
I think of Skyler, likely sitting in the “blue room” or standing in the gallery of ghosts, staring at his phone. He is waiting for a response that will never come. He is waiting for a compromise that doesn’t exist. He is still trying to figure out how to frame the disaster.
I close my eyes, not feeling the Thompson weight on my lungs anymore. I don’t feel the stitch of the white silk dress. I only feel the cedar-scented air and the warmth of the Northwestern hoodie.
I fall asleep before I can even finish the thought. It’s a deep, dreamless sleep—the kind you only get when you’ve finally stopped running from yourself and started building a place to stay.