“Is that a key to somewhere we’d all live,” Dave said. “Together.”
He said it with the focused precision of a nine-year-old who had assessed the room, read the adults, run the calculation, and arrived at the most direct version of the question everyone else was dancing around.
Eleanor looked at him. “Yes,” she said simply. “That’s what it is.”
Dave looked at the key in Cloe’s hand. Then at Mac. Then back at the key.
“Four bedrooms,” he said.
“Four bedrooms,” Eleanor confirmed.
“So one for Mum. One for me. One for Mac.” He paused. “What’s the fourth for.”
“Guests,” Eleanor said. “Or whatever it needs to be.”
Dave turned this over in his particular way, quiet and thorough, running it through the system. Sophia appeared in the doorway behind him, book forgotten, clearly having heard a
