I looked at him.
“All of them?”
“He was committed to research.”
That sounded like James too.
Marco set one plate in front of me.
“He came every Friday for years.”
I blinked.
“Every Friday?”
“Almost.”
“He told me Fridays were client meetings.”
Marco smiled.
“They were.”
Then he added, “I was the client.”
The family looked at him.
Marco pulled up the chair again.
“He kept helping after the loan was fixed.”
“With what?”
“Everything.”
Marco gestured toward the restaurant.
“Inventory. Payroll systems. Pricing. Business plans. He made me put my daughter on payroll properly because I was paying her from three different accounts and calling it bookkeeping.”
A woman passing behind him said, “He was right.”
Marco turned.
“Maria, please.”
She smiled.
His daughter, apparently.
Marco shook his head.
“He taught us how to make the restaurant profitable without becoming something we were not.”
He looked at the children.
“He said, ‘Everyone deserves a chance to build something that lasts for their family.’”
Amanda shifted.
Gerald stared at the table.
Margaret’s expression had gone completely still.
There was grief in it now.
Not irritation.
Not pride.
Grief.
She had spent two years trying to preserve James as the version she knew.
Successful banker.
Responsible son.
Proper father.
Good suit.
Good manners.
Now a whole piece of him was appearing in a restaurant she had just declared too refined for his children.
Marco stood.
“I have guests to annoy elsewhere.”
That made Max laugh.
Before leaving, Marco put a hand lightly on my shoulder.
“You stay.”
It wasn’t a command.
It was an invitation.
“We will.”
He nodded.
After he walked away, Gerald turned to me.
“Olivia.”
I looked at him.
His eyes were wet.
“I’m sorry.”
Margaret looked at her husband.
“For what?”
Gerald ignored her.
“We’ve been so worried about keeping everything proper since James died.”
I felt the familiar ache in my chest.
“Proper?”
He rubbed his thumb against the side of his water glass.
“I think we were afraid if anything changed, we were losing another piece of him.”
That I understood.
More than I wanted to.
After James passed, I left his shoes in the mudroom for four months.
Not because I believed he was coming home.
Because moving them felt like agreeing he wasn’t.
Gerald continued.
“We forgot what he actually cared about.”
He looked at Emily.
She was coloring again.
Quietly.
Max had resumed his puzzle.
Sophie was negotiating cookie ownership with a stuffed rabbit.
“They’re good kids,” Gerald said.
“They are.”
“I know.”
Margaret began, “Gerald, nobody said they were bad.”
He looked at her.
“No.”
His voice strengthened.
“But you told them they didn’t belong here.”
Margaret stared at him.
Gerald had contradicted his wife before.
I’m sure he had.
I had simply never seen him do it so directly.
“Gerald—”
“No, Margaret.”
She stopped.
“Enough.”
The word was quiet.
But Amanda looked up.
So did Thomas.
Gerald gestured gently toward the children.
“Look at them.”
Margaret did.
“They’re coloring.”
“Yes.”
“They’re curious.”
“Yes.”
“James was exactly like that.”
Her expression changed.
A server appeared beside me before anyone could answer.
She was young, maybe twenty-five, carrying a leather-bound book against her chest.
“Mrs. Harrison?”
“Yes?”
“Mr. Salvatore asked me to give you this.”
She placed the book in front of me.
The leather was worn at the corners.
“What is it?”
“Recipes. Notes. Old menus. Mr. James helped us digitize the restaurant system years ago, and he kept writing comments in the margins of this one. Mr. Salvatore thought you should have it.”
My fingers trembled when I opened the cover.
I recognized James’s handwriting immediately.