Chapter 7: Settling
By the second month the absence of the tuition and car payments had become ordinary on my side of the ledger and, from what little reached me, chaotic on Drew’s.
I did not seek updates. Occasional secondhand comments from a relative suggested that St. Catherine’s had moved her account into formal collection language and that the car situation had required a hurried alternative arrangement. None of that information required my action or my sympathy in the form of reopened transfers. The structure that had depended on my automatic reliability had been given clear notice of its end. What followed belonged to the people who had treated the reliability as an entitlement.
Theo’s life continued in its smaller, steadier shape. School, the park, the library, the bakery downstairs where the owner sometimes gave him a day-old roll without commentary. He asked fewer questions about Cody and Aunt Drew. Children release what the adults around them no longer feed. I fed him routine, clear answers when he needed them, and the absence of adult conflict performed in his sightline. The combination appeared sufficient.
