“What paperwork?”
She grinned. “An LLC. You keep talking about how nobody ever built you a room that fit. Go build some. Insurance goes through your existing policy. I’ll be your first client. My kitchen is a crime and my porch light is from 1982.”
I stared at the document. The name made me laugh out loud: Shadow Edge Design. “It’s stupid,” I said, instantly protective.
“It’s perfect,” she said. “Say yes.”
I said yes. We toasted with orangey porch light flickering over our knuckles. The ring hummed like a tiny engine.
January brought sentencing for Cheryl and the formal closeout of Dylan’s case. I didn’t go to court. I went to my garage. I sanded a slab of ash until the grain rose like smoke and then vanished under my palm. Sometime after lunch, I wiped my hands on a rag and checked my phone. One text from Mason: “Done. Orders entered. You got everything you asked for.”
I made myself read the orders that night to be sure reality matched the words. It did. Community service changed. Restitution locked. Dylan assigned to a weekly group, attendance verified by signatures not his own. A line at the bottom said if he missed more than three sessions, the court could revisit his diversion and enter adjudication. Consequences had finally learned my brother’s name.
In February, I got an email from a high‑school guidance counselor in Littleton. “We’re re‑writing our student‑athlete code and parent orientation,” she said. “Would you come speak?” I stared at the invite for a long time and thought of the girl in the catcher’s gear. I said yes with terms that would have terrified the old me and delighted Mara: I would speak for twenty minutes and take no questions. If any parent attempted to engage me about “false positives” or “media bias,” I would end the talk. I would not be photographed with any athlete. And a sheriff’s deputy would be present in the auditorium.
On the night of the talk, I wore jeans and a sweater the color of good coffee and stood behind a lectern built to make a person look small. “My name is Landry Beckett,” I said. “I grew up here. I’m not here to ruin anybody’s dreams.” I told them three stories—one about the cost of lights on a backyard cage, one about a SAT Saturday that turned into a four‑hour batting practice, one about a girl who waited nine months for a doctor and was told she should be proud to help her brother chase a bus that was already leaving. I did not say the word “steroids.” I did not have to. When I finished, the deputy opened the side door and I walked out into the hall, where the air smelled like floor wax and the echo of thousands of teenagers learning how to want things without hurting anyone.
A woman caught up to me in the parking lot. She had a face that looked like it had learned not to cry. “My daughter’s on varsity softball,” she said. “We’ve been saving for her camps. Sometimes I feel crazy for saying no to the stuff the other parents do.” She pressed her lips together, said nothing about what those things were.
“You’re not crazy,” I said. “You’re brave.” I pointed at the mountains, because they were there and so were we. “It’s okay to want. It’s not okay to feed your kid the world and call it love.”
In early spring, after a storm that took down two fence boards and half my patience, Frank helped me cut new pickets and set them true. He told me about his wife, gone five years now, and how she’d make him re‑hang a picture three times until the horizon looked level to her heart. “That’s what you’re doing,” he said, tapping a nail into place with the flat of his hand. “Getting your horizon back.”
The first time I saw Dylan again was a month later, by accident, at a grocery store on Table Mesa. He was in the cereal aisle, holding two boxes like the choice might break him. He’d lost weight in a way that made his skin look too big for his bones. The tendons in his neck stood out like warnings. He saw me at the same moment I saw him. For a second his face lit with the old reflex—look who’s here to fix it—and then the court order marched between us and sat down. He put the boxes back on the shelf very carefully. “Landry,” he said. No swagger. No heat. Just my name.
“Hi, Dylan.”
He glanced left, right, like a deer that used to be a buck. “I’m… going to my meeting.” He said it like it tasted unfamiliar but not poisonous. “There’s one over by the rec center. I have to get signatures.” He lifted a clipboard I hadn’t seen.
“I know,” I said. “I asked for it.”