Written in 59 minutes.

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Stopping by after school to talk. Jake’s coming with me.

Danny read the text from his dad three more times, but the words didn’t reveal anything new, anything groundbreaking. Just the same ten words. It was a good sign, wasn’t it, that Jake was coming with their dad?

“It must mean that they’re good again,” Danny said to Rocco as his sort-of stepbrother sorted through a stack of laundry and dumped some into the open suitcase. He ignored the implication of the suitcase, the reminder that this situation was temporary. That Rocco and his dad weren’t planning to live at the Quartermaines.

“Yeah, maybe. Or whatever your dad has to say is bad enough Jake wants to be here anyway.” Rocco sat on the bed, glumly. “Like my dad signing a lease on the place downtown. He’s doing that right now.”

Danny folded his arms, swallowed hard, looking down at the thick cream carpet. “I don’t know why we can’t all stay here. Your dad, mine —”

“I asked Dad, and he’s like—” Rocco jerked a shoulder. “His mom lives here, but that doesn’t make it their house. I don’t know. It’s stupid. And your dad, well, he gave Drew a black eye, so—”

“Drew didn’t like him before that,” Danny muttered. He wandered over to the window, trying to find the lake beyond the trees. “But yeah, it doesn’t help. Still we should all stay, and Drew should leave Scout here. We should be together.”

“That went out the door when your mom died, Danny. You know that. We don’t have any choices here. We’re the kids, no one gives a damn about us.”

“Yeah—” Danny stopped when he saw Scout peeking around the corner. “Hey. Hey. I was gonna come check on you. How was school?” He went to the door, ushered her into the room. “Do you have homework?”

“No.” Scout wrinkled her nose, then climbed up next to Rocco. “We’re out of school for a whole week ’cause of Thanksgiving. I hate it. I wanna go back. I don’t wanna sit around this stupid house for a whole week.”

“We’ll try to make it fun,” Danny said. “We’ll watch movies or go out into the garden before it gets too cold—”

Scout looked at Rocco. “I was downstairs, and your dad was telling Uncle Michael you guys are leaving. Why do you gotta leave? Uncle Michael said he can stay. You should stay.”

“I’m not charge of this, okay? No one asked me if I wanted to move. They never do.” Rocco flopped onto his back, stared at the ceiling. “Dad didn’t ask me if he wanted us to move to the penthouse or here and now he doesn’t care if I wanna go to some stupid apartment. He doesn’t care about any of it. Just like your dad doesn’t give a damn about you.”

Danny jolted at that. “Hey, don’t tell her that—”

“Tell me I’m wrong—” Rocco said, jerking back to a sitting position, his dark eyes hot. “He’s dragging her to DC, isn’t he? New school, new friends. It’s like he doesn’t even care Sam died. Does he even talk to you, Scout? Did he ask you if you wanted go?”

Her mouth trembled, and tears welled up. “I’m a good girl. He said if I was a good girl, we could stay.”

Danny furrowed his brow. “What?”

“Stay where? In PC?”

Scout pressed her lips together and shook her head. “I’m not supposed to say. Daddy said I can’t tell any lies, even if I don’t think they’re lies. They might be and that’s enough. Lies hurt people. So I’ll be a good girl and we can stay. He promised.”

Rocco opened his mouth, but Danny sent him a dark look. They weren’t going to talk about this with Scout any more. She was only seven. “Okay. Then he promised. Let’s go find something to watch on TV.”

“Yeah, do that. I’ll come find you guys after my dad leaves,” Danny said following him out of the room. “We’ll figure this out, okay? I know it.”

“Sure,” Rocco said, but rolled his eyes and they parted ways with Rocco and Scout heading for the upstairs TV room and Danny for the entrance hall.

He knew his dad would figure this out. He’d find a way to fix things. And then Danny would figure out what the hell his sister was talking about.

—

Kristina jogged over to the door, wincing only slightly when she pulled it open and found TJ standing on the other side. She and her sister’s partner hadn’t been in the same room since Adela’s funeral, since that horrible scene at the graveside. She sort of remembered TJ coming to Sam’s services, but they hadn’t spoken.

And now he was here, in front of her. “Uh, I guess you were looking for my mom. Not me.”

TJ took a moment to answer, and she wondered if he was swallowing a more insulting reply. “Yeah. I know things are…not going well with Molly right now, and well, I wanted your mom to hear it from me. Or I guess you should since you weren’t at the hearing today.”

“Hearing?” Kristina’s heart skipped a beat. “They couldn’t possibly have a hearing in family court yet — Mom only just filed, and Molly just got the case. I talked to her two days ago!”

“Not—not the custody situation. Ava. The motion for a continuance?” TJ prompted, and Kristina froze.

Ava. The woman who had murdered her child. How could Kristina have forgotten— “I didn’t—”

“It was granted. The trial won’t start until March.”

“March—that’s—” Too far away. Too long for a woman like Ava to walk the streets. Kristina tightened her grip on the door. “Why the hell did the judge allow it?”

“I didn’t—the DA’s office didn’t fight it, so I guess there must be a good reason.” TJ made a face. “Well, I came. I told you. You can pass it to your mother or not. I guess you were all too busy for the hearing—”

“Hey—” Kristina reached out, snagged TJ’s arm as he was about to leave. “Don’t you dare suggest I don’t care about what Ava did. She did it to me, remember? I’m the one who went flying out the window, I’m the one who nearly died.”

“And it was my daughter who died, but sure, let’s talk about you. It’s your favorite topic, isn’t it?” TJ snapped, turning back to her. “You don’t want to start with me, Kristina. You really don’t.”

“Why? You gonna throw my daughter’s death in my face the way my sister does?” Kristina demanded. “Ava pushed me, TJ. She killed that little girl before she ever took a breath—”

“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t think about Irene, about what she’d be doing if things had been different. But you don’t care about my relationship with my daughter. You were going to sue me for custody—”

“I—” Kristina took a deep, careful breath. “I was doing that to protect her. To protect the baby—”

“To protect Irene, Kristina. Not the baby, not your daughter. Use her name when you talk about her, damn—” TJ dragged his hands down his face. “I can’t do this. I can’t believe I thought I could come over here and find some common ground—”

“Why? Molly having second thoughts about betraying my mother? About taking the side of a deadbeat father over the woman who’s been with Danny and Scout for their whole lives? No, Molly knows exactly where she can find us if she wants to make peace. She chose to take Jason’s case instead of advocating for Sam’s kids.”

“And the longer I talk to you, the more I know she was right. You and your mother if she goes through with this, you’re being nothing but selfish and arrogant,” TJ retorted. “But that’s nothing new for you. We have nothing to say to each other.”

“Damn right we don’t.” Kristina stepped back and slammed the door.

—

Jason had picked Jake up at Elizabeth’s after Danny’s school had finished for the day, and the ride to the estate on Harborview was a silent one. He didn’t know what to say to his son, not about all the things that had happened since Jake had come home, or about the conversation they needed to have with Danny.

Danny was waiting in the entrance hall for them, his eyes lighting up when Jake came in after Jason. “Hey. It’s so good to see you guys together. I knew you’d figure things out, didn’t I say it would be okay?” he told Jake.

“Yeah, we’re…” Jake offered his father an unreadable look. “We’re figuring it out. But we need a quiet place to talk. Is that possible in this place?”

“Yeah, yeah, come on back to the—” Danny gestured, and they followed him down the short hallway to the library. It was one of the few rooms in the mansion that hadn’t been heavily redecorated in the last few years, Jason thought, one of the last ones that still resembled what it had looked like after the accident.

How many tense confrontations and arguments had this room seen? He didn’t know if he had any good memories in here, other than with his grandmother. Or his sister, both of whom were long gone from this house.

“You guys look like—um, well, you don’t look like you have good news,” Danny said, watching Jake close the door. “What’s wrong?”

“Let’s—” Jason gestured to the sofa. “Let’s sit—”

“I wanna stand.” Danny swallowed hard, folded his arms. “Are you leaving again?”

“What?” Jason asked, thrown. “No—”

“Because the last time you looked like that, you were going to leave again. In July, remember? Before Aunt Carly was arrested—”

“You were going to leave again?” Jake demanded, coming back into Jason’s view. “What the hell?”

Jason grimaced, dragged his hands down his face. “It was going to be for a short time,” he told Jake. “And it wasn’t like before. It wasn’t going to be like before,” he reminded Danny. “I told you that. It would have been like Africa.”

Jake clenched his jaw, shoved his hands into his pockets. “Just fantastic,” he muttered. “Why didn’t you tell me?” he asked his brother.

“You were gonna leave for Spain, I figured you didn’t need another reason to be pissed at Dad, though I guess I gave you one anyway,” Danny said, heaving a sigh. He dropped into the old armchair. “Whatever. Tell me whatever you need to tell me. But it’s gonna be that me and Scout can’t stay together, isn’t it?”

Jason exhaled slowly, then perched on the edge of the coffee table, waiting for Danny to look at him. “That was never going to be a possibility, Danny. I know what you wanted, what you hoped. But that was never something in my power to give you.”

Danny pressed his lips together. “Why didn’t you just say something? Why didn’t you say it before?”

“Maybe I should have. But it’s…none of this is easy, Danny. This was never the plan. Your mom…she’s supposed to be here.”

Danny swiped at his eyes, looked at Jake. “You happy? This is what you wanted, isn’t it? Dad didn’t save the day.”

“If you mean I wanted you to be unhappy, no.” Jake dropped onto the sofa, leaned over. “And maybe I was an asshole about it, but I didn’t want you to get your hopes up. I wanted to avoid this. This sucks.”

“At least you still have your mom,” Danny said, his chin dipping until it touched his chest. “You get to go home to her and I never do. So you don’t know anything, okay? You don’t get to say this sucks.”

Jason hesitated, trying to think of the best way to continue. “We need to talk about what happens next. You can and should stay here until Scout…until Scout isn’t here. You should have each other as long as you can. But I’m looking for a place for us. If you want to be involved, have a say, then we can do that. But it won’t be just you and me.”

Danny furrowed his brow, looked at Jake, then back at his dad. “I don’t understand.”

“I’m staying. At least until next fall,” Jake said. “Dad asked me to come live with you guys. So I’m gonna be there, too. I know it’s not as good as Rocco or Scout, but we…we haven’t ever gotten to live together. It might…it be cool, right?”

Danny was quiet for a long moment, and Jason wondered if maybe they’d rushed this conversation. Or maybe he’d committed a fatal mistake when he hadn’t been up front with Danny days ago.

“I don’t want anything to change,” Danny said finally, his voice shaking slightly. “I just want my sister and my mom. But I don’t get to have that, do I? I n-never get to have it again.” His lips trembled. “It’s not fair. It’s not fair. Rocco’s mom is alive, but she’s in a stupid coma, so it wasn’t even worth it. She should have died, and my mom should be alive. It’s not fair.”

“I said that when Dad…when we thought Dad was gone,” Jake said, and Danny looked at him. “Remember? Our moms sat us down to tell us he was gone in Greece, and they told us he’d been trying to save Drew and Dr. Westbourne and a lot of people in those tunnels. And I was pissed. I said it should have been that doctor because I didn’t like her. And then she died anyway, so what was the point, right? Now they were both died, and if she died back then, I’d still have my dad.”

“It’s not the same,” Danny muttered. “Our dad is here—”

“Rocco’s mom might wake up one day. That still doesn’t make it fair that you lost your mom. Or that Dr. Westbourne ended up dying anyway. But you love Rocco. He’s like your brother. Do you want him to go through what you’re going through? Is that fair?”

“No. No. I just—” Danny swiped at his eyes. “I just want my mom. I don’t wanna live anywhere she’s not.” He sat up, his cheeks red, maybe from the embarrassment of crying in front of his father and brother. “But I don’t get to have it. Life’s not fair, Mom always said that. So if I can’t have my sister and my mom, I guess…I guess it’ll be cool being you both. But—” He looked at Jake. “You gotta stop being an asshole to Dad.”

“Danny,” Jason started, but Jake just shook his head.

“Whatever you need. That’s why I came home, so we could figure this out. I’m sorry about Scout. Maybe Drew will change his mind and let her stay here. I’m sure Grandma Monica wouldn’t mind.”

“Well, we got a couple of a weeks to work on him.” Danny sighed, got to his feet. Jake and Jason followed suit. “But I don’t gotta go until she does, right?”

“Right. You can stay here with Scout until she leaves. She’ll need her brother for as long as she can have you. And we’ll visit. I’ll—I’ll find a way to make that okay,” Jason said, though it was pained. Maybe Elizabeth would be able to help with that. Or someone in the family.

“Yeah. And we’ll video call,” Jake told Danny. “Where is she, anyway? I wanna catch up with my little cousin.”

“Upstairs watching TV. Can you—can you stay? For a while?” Danny asked.

Jake looked at Jason, who nodded. “Call me when you need a ride,” he told Jake. “I’ll come back out and get you.”

“We gotta talk about me getting a car if I’m gonna be back home,” Jake said, but he always already heading out the door with Danny.

Jason sighed, then looked around the room, at the many photos of his family. He went to the  desk where Monica had kept their last family portrait, taken before the accident. He picked it up, looking at the familiar faces.

He didn’t remember being the man in this photo, with his smiling face and arm slung around his older brother’s shoulders, but it wasn’t so hard to admit to being him anymore.

“Remembering everything you threw away?”

The taunt washed over Jason like acid, and he bristled, turning to find Drew in the doorway.

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