Chapter 12
“They love the backyard, Mer,” Celeste said, her voice sounding lighter, more grounded than I had ever heard it. “Maisie found an old tire swing in the oak tree. Poppy spent three hours yesterday chasing a squirrel. They don't miss the terrace at all. They just like having a yard where they can run without a concierge telling them to keep their voices down.”
“And Andrew?”
A long pause hung over the line.
“He’s tired,” Celeste admitted quietly. “He works twelve hours a day. He’s taking small commercial listings he would have turned his nose up at two years ago. But... he’s sleeping at night, Meredith. Really sleeping. For the first time since I married him, he isn't waking up at three in the morning staring at the ceiling in a panic. He knows what he has, and he knows what he owes. It’s hard. But it’s real.”
“Good,” I said. “Tell him Frank charges fifty dollars an hour, and he expects cash.”
Celeste laughed—a real, uncurated laugh that echoed warmly through the phone. “I will. Thank you, Mer.”
Eleven months later.
December arrived again, cloaking the Twin Cities in a thick blanket of fresh, pristine snow.
RouteSpring had completed its strongest fiscal year to date, opening a secondary data hub in Fargo and crossing sixty employees. We held our annual company party at an Italian family restaurant in Northeast Minneapolis—red-checkered tablecloths, family-style pasta, local craft beer, and an open bar paid for with real company revenue. No sponsors. No black-tie dress code. No curated crowd. Just good people who had worked hard all year celebrating the fruit of their labor.
On Christmas Eve, the snow was falling softly, large lazy flakes drifting down through the quiet branches of the neighborhood oaks.
My driveway was clear, shoveled that morning by the teenage kid who lived two doors down. Inside my bungalow, the radiators hissed their steady, comforting song, the scent of cinnamon and roasting chicken filling the warm rooms.
At 4:30 p.m., a car pulled into my driveway.
I looked through the front window. It wasn't a luxury SUV. It was the salt-streaked silver Honda Civic, its engine rumbling with a steady, reliable hum.
The doors opened.
Maisie, now nine, and Poppy, six, bounded out of the back seats, bundled in brightly colored winter parkas and knit hats with oversized pom-poms. They sprinted up the shoveled walkway, their boots crunching merrily in the snow.