Jacob
I had been trying to say it for three days.
Not to Leah. Not yet.
To Lizzie.
That was the part nobody warned you about. The moment you understood what you wanted, the wanting was clean. Simple. Something you could hold still and name.
The rest was paperwork.
She was in the family consultation room on the third floor. She had claimed it sometime yesterday, the way Lizzie claimed spaces — arriving first, arranging herself, becoming so central to the furniture that the room started to feel like hers.
I knocked.
Ruth’s voice said, “Come in.”
I hadn’t expected Ruth.
She stood near the window with her phone in one hand, dressed like the floor was a function she intended to be photographed at. Lizzie sat at the table with two coffee cups and the expression she put on when she was
