The playroom didn’t stay neat for more than ten minutes.
Lily made sure of that. Blocks everywhere. A half-built tower leaning. A toy truck overturned near the rug.
Kyle sat on the floor in the middle of it. Not stiff. Not careful. Just sitting.
Lily crouched across from him, both hands moving fast, rearranging pieces like she’d already decided what they were building.
"No, this goes here." She pushed a block into place before Kyle could finish what he was doing. "If you put it there, it falls."
"It didn’t fall," Kyle said. Not annoyed. Just stating it.
"It will fall."
Leo sat beside them, slightly behind, his tablet against his knee. He typed sothing, paused, then turned the screen toward Lily.
Lily glanced at it. "He says it’s fine. But we should make it stronger."
Leo frowned. Tapped again.
Lily looked this ti. "Oh." She blinked. "He says you should make it stronger."
Kyle laughed. Short. Surprised. Like it slipped out before he thought about it.
Arianne stood by the door. She wasn’t here just to watch.
She’d been thinking about Ellie since the bar. About Julian saying her schedule doesn’t allow for consistency. About the way he’d said it—not careless, but resigned. Like he’d already accepted it as fixed.
She wanted to know what Ellie thought it was.
She also wanted to know what Kyle’s days actually looked like. Whether the arrangent Julian described was working or whether it was sothing he’d presented as working because admitting otherwise would require him to do sothing he hadn’t figured out yet. Those were two different things. She needed to know which one she was looking at before she decided what to do about it.
Kyle leaned forward, adjusting one of the blocks with both hands. He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t look over his shoulder. He just did it.
The tower held.
Lily nodded like she’d expected it all along. "See?"
Leo rested his tablet back against his leg.
From down the hall, the front door opened.
The sound carried through the house. A change in air, then footsteps.
Leo paused. His head tilted. Attention moving before anything else.
A few seconds later, Ellie appeared in the doorway.
She stopped just past the threshold. Hand on her bag strap. Coat not fully off, like she hadn’t decided whether she was staying or just passing through.
Her eyes went straight to Kyle. And stayed there.
He was on the floor, laughing at sothing Lily was saying—low now, almost done, but real. He didn’t look up. Didn’t run to her. Didn’t check if she was watching. He just stayed where he was.
Ellie let out a breath. Her shoulders dropped. Not all the way. But enough.
"He’s been like this?" Her voice was low.
Arianne stepped closer. "More."
Ellie nodded. Like she was confirming sothing she hadn’t let herself believe.
Kyle finally looked up. "Mom."
He pushed himself up fast. Crossed the room. Stopped just short of running into her.
Ellie’s hand went to the back of his head, then slid to his shoulder. Holding him there. Not pulling. Just feeling that he was real.
"You had fun?"
"We’re building sothing. It’s not done yet."
Ellie smiled. Small. Tired. "I can see that."
She didn’t pull him away. Didn’t rush him.
After a second, Kyle stepped back on his own. Already half-facing the tower. "I’ll finish it."
"You can," Ellie said.
She stepped fully into the room. Closed the distance between herself and Arianne.
Up close, the fatigue was clearer. Under her eyes. In the way she held her shoulders like she hadn’t had ti to settle into her own body.
Arianne moved toward the side of the room. Ellie followed.
"What kind of arrangent did you and Julian agree on?"
Ellie adjusted her grip on the bag strap. Let it fall to her side. "It wasn’t structured at first. We were figuring it out as we went." Her eyes flicked toward Kyle. "My schedule doesn’t allow for consistency. Not the kind he needs."
"What does he need?"
Ellie looked at her. The question had landed sowhere she hadn’t expected.
"I know what he needs," she said. Not defensively. Clearly. "I know exactly what he needs. I’m just not always the one who can give it to him." Her thumb pressed against the bag strap. "That’s the part I’m working out how to say out loud."
Arianne waited.
Ellie took a second. "Soone there in the morning. Soone who can pick him up when things run late. Soone who—" She stopped.
She looked at Kyle. He was on the floor again, back beside Lily and Leo, already arguing about sothing that had nothing to do with her.
"Soone who makes it normal," she said. Flat. Like she’d said it before in her own head and didn’t like the sound of it. "Julian covers the financial side. School, care, anything like that." A pause. "And this helps."
She looked at Lily and Leo and Kyle on the floor, already back at it, Lily’s voice rising again about the structural integrity of sothing that was clearly going to fall.
"I thought I’d have more ti by now," Ellie said. Not an excuse. Just a fact she hadn’t put in that order before. "I thought the work would ease up. It didn’t." Her jaw tightened for a second. "He deserves better than figuring it out as I go."
"It makes it easier," Arianne said.
Not perfect. Not solved. Just easier.
"You can leave him here whenever you need to."
Ellie looked at her. Sothing moved across her face—not hesitation, sothing that took longer to na.
"That’s not—" She stopped.
Arianne didn’t fill it.
Ellie exhaled. "Thank you." Softer than before.
Across the room, Lily had abandoned the original tower. Stacking sothing taller now. Less stable. Kyle was trying to correct it without undoing what she’d built. Leo sat between them, typing, then holding the tablet up like evidence.
"Wait," Lily said, leaning in. "He says—" She squinted. "No, that’s wrong."
Leo tapped again. Sharper.
Lily blinked. "Oh." She looked at Kyle. "He says it’s going to fall."
"It’s not—"
The tower tilted. Then collapsed.
All three froze for half a second. Then Lily burst out laughing. Kyle followed. Leo didn’t laugh—but his shoulders shook once. Quick. Contained.
Ellie watched them. Her hand was pressed against her chest. She didn’t seem to know she was doing it.
Arianne watched her watch him. The way Ellie’s face had gone soft in a way she probably didn’t show very often. The way she’d stepped into the room but not toward him, like she understood that what he needed right now was exactly this—Lily and Leo and the collapsed tower—and that her being too close would change it into sothing else.
She understood it because she’d learned it. That was different from knowing it naturally.
"You’ve been showing up everywhere lately," Ellie said.
Arianne glanced at her. "Have I?"
"There was an article. Fashion magazine. They were talking about your style—sothing about how wearing dark suits all the ti doesn’t make you look dull." Ellie’s tone was light. Not quite casual. "They said it looked intentional. Like you were building sothing."
Arianne’s fingers stilled at her side.
She thought about the board in the study. The na at the center. The lines running out from it. Alex’s line bleeding into the cork. She thought about Franz’s text in her pocket and the word found and what that might an—what he might have found, how it would change the shape of everything she’d been building toward.
The magazine thought she was building a public persona. They weren’t wrong. They also had no idea what else she was building at the sa ti, in the sa study, at two in the morning with ink on her hands.
"Maybe," she said.
Ellie looked at her. Not probing. Just—looking. Then she nodded, like she’d understood sothing that hadn’t been said.
"I think he’s lucky," Ellie said. She was looking at Kyle again. "That you both showed up. Franz and you."
Arianne’s phone buzzed in her pocket. She didn’t reach for it.
She knew who it was. Franz had a particular rhythm to how he texted—not often, never anything that could wait, always at the exact mont she’d been about to think about him. She had noticed that pattern six weeks ago and had not said anything about it because saying sothing about it would require her to acknowledge that she was paying that much attention to his timing.
She was paying that much attention to his timing.
She’d check it when Ellie left.
Across the room, Lily was rebuilding. Faster this ti. Less careful. Kyle followed without questioning it. Leo typed, held the tablet up, and neither of them fully listened.
The new tower leaned.
Ellie’s hand was against her chest. She hadn’t moved it.
Arianne finally reached into her pocket. Pulled out her phone.
Franz’s ssage was two words.
Found sothing.
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