She was asking me.
I unfastened my seat belt, climbed into the back, and held her.
“I’m okay.”
“Is Aunt Deline mad because I didn’t share?”
“What she did was not your fault.”
“Poppy wanted all of them.”
“You had already shared.”
“She said I was bad.”
“You were not bad.”
“Dad didn’t say anything.”
The sentence landed softly.
Children often identify the center of a wound faster than adults do.
I looked toward the front windshield where snow collected around the wipers.
“Your father should have spoken.”
“Was he scared?”
“Yes.”
“Of Aunt Deline?”
“I think so.”
Renley considered that.
“Grown-ups can be scared?”
“All the time.”
“But you talked.”
“I was scared too.”
She leaned into me.
“Will she do it again?”
“No.”
I did not yet know what that promise would require.
I only knew I would keep it.
Callum came home three hours later.
He found me at the kitchen table with a cold cup of tea and Renley asleep upstairs.
“I went back inside,” he said.
“That is not something I need to know.”
“I told Deline she was wrong.”
“After we left?”
“Yes.”
“Did you say it in front of everyone?”
He looked away.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“She was upset. Mom was crying. The whole situation had gotten out of control.”
“The situation did not get out of control. Your sister made a choice.”
“I know.”
“You stood beside her while she made it.”
His face tightened.
“I froze.”
“You watched our daughter being pulled across the room.”
“I know what I saw.”
“Then why did I have to be the only person who moved?”
He lowered himself into the chair across from me.
“I don’t have an answer you’ll accept.”
“Try the honest one.”
He rubbed both hands over his face.
“I have never been able to stop Deline once she decides she is right.”
“That is an explanation from your childhood. Renley needed a father in the present.”
He looked toward the staircase.
“I’m sorry.”
“Tell her.”
“I will.”
“Not tonight. She is sleeping.”
He nodded.
Then he asked, “What did you mean when you told Deline she would understand by the new year?”
I looked at him.
Two months earlier, Callum and I had been preparing our tax records at the same table.
He casually mentioned that Deline and Foster had used our address as a secondary reference on a business loan for Deline’s flower shop.
I remembered signing a form.
Callum said it was a small family guarantee connected to a work truck Foster needed. He described it as temporary and low-risk.
I trusted him.
I did not read the entire packet.
Now, after Thanksgiving, I remembered Deline’s financial access in a new light.
“If my name appears on any document connected to your sister,” I said, “I’m going to find out exactly what I signed.”
Callum’s posture changed.
“Marlo, don’t make business decisions tonight.”
“I’m not making one. I’m requesting information.”
“Freezing her credit would hurt the shop.”
“I did not say I was freezing anything.”
“But that is what you meant at Mom’s house.”
“What I meant was that Deline has spent years assuming no one will question the arrangements made for her.”
“You’re angry.”