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Mom nudges my arm, light but pointed. “You gonna help her?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

She smiles. “That’s my boy.” Mom’s voice softens. “Your parents would be proud of the man you’ve become, Leon.”

My hand stills on the shelf.

Everything else drops out. No wind sliding through the broken windows. No creak of the sign outside. No distant groan from somewhere down the block. Just that.

They should have gotten old.

Instead, Barbara got a broken thirteen-year-old boy with a ruined throat, a dead family, and enough anger and grief to burn down a house if she’d let it.

She didn’t let it.

My hands move before I can talk myself out of it. “I’m the man I am today because of you, Mom.”

Her hand presses between my shoulder blades.

“I’m proud of you too, my boy,” she whispers against my ear.

When we let go, she wipes under one eye and gives me a look like I better not mention the tears.

I wouldn’t dare.

We both turn back to the rack and get to work. The moment tucks itself behind my ribs, snug and aching, but my hands know what to do.

Scan. Count. Breathe. Focus. Move.

My fingers drag along the lower shelf.

Something smaller sits tucked in the back.

I kneel and go still.

A pink compact bow.

EIGHT

I’LL NEED A BRAID

CLAIR

The note has been in my pocket for two days.

Two stupid words written in Leon’s rough, slanted handwriting on a folded scrap of paper, and somehow they’ve been burning a hole against my thigh since he walked away from me.

Atta girl.

Every glance at it makes my stomach do something deeply inconvenient.

Now, before dinner is ready, I sit near Max with Poppy’s sweater in my lap, darning a hole in the sleeve by the fading light. My fingers are stiff from the cold, and the needle keeps catching on the frayed yarn, but the familiar motion settles me.

In. Out. Pull. Knot.

Fix what can be fixed.

The note sits unfolded beside me on the seat.