Chapter 5 - WHAT LEO HEARD
I did not question Leo that night the way frightened adults often do—too hard, too fast, hoping the child will make the story clearer for them.
Instead, I made cocoa.
We built a block fort in the sitting room.
He fell asleep watching a cartoon with his head on my knee.
Only when he woke up from his nap and asked quietly whether Dad was coming soon did I sit beside him and say:
“Buddy, when you talked to me yesterday… I need you to tell me exactly what you heard.”
Leo twisted the hem of his blue striped shirt.
“Will Dad get mad?”
“Not at you.”
He looked at me with the terrifying seriousness some children develop far too early.
“He gets mad even when it’s not me.”
I kept my face still, though something in my chest tightened.
“What did you hear?”
He whispered:
“Dad was in the kitchen with the blonde lady. You called and said you’d send more money. After he hung up, he laughed.”
“Do you remember what he said?”
Leo nodded.
“He said, ‘The old man still thinks I’m drowning.’”
I closed my eyes.
“And the lady?”
“She said, ‘Just keep him soft until the trust hearing.’”
Trust hearing.
Ellen had mentioned filing an emergency petition to reopen Claire’s estate and freeze Leo’s fund if misuse could be shown.
I leaned closer.
“Anything else?”
Leo glanced toward the front windows.
“He said once you signed the school money papers, we could move.”
“Move where?”
“I don’t know. The lady said Arizona.”
My stomach turned.
Marcus was planning to take Leo out of state.
“Did your dad ever say anything about Mommy’s urn?”
Leo thought hard.
Then nodded.
“He told the blonde lady he was glad you wanted it because ‘it kept you sentimental and out of the numbers.’”
The numbers.
There it was. That was how Marcus saw me now—not as Claire’s father, not as Leo’s grandfather. Just as an old man made easier to manipulate by grief.
I kept my voice calm.
“Leo, has your dad ever told you not to tell me things?”
He nodded immediately.
“What kinds of things?”
“If he has friends over. Or if I stay at Ms. Janine’s. Or if I hear yelling.”
“Do they yell at you?”
“No.”
Too fast.
I waited.
Leo’s eyes dropped.
“Dad yells when I ask about Mommy.”
I swallowed.
“How often do you stay with Janine?”
“Sometimes.”
“In the house?”
“She has pink slippers there.”
That small detail broke me more than any grand revelation could have.
Children always expose truth through the domestic object.
A pair of slippers.
A toothbrush.
A key.
Janine did not simply visit.
She lived enough of a life there that Leo knew her routine.
I stroked his hair gently.
“You did the right thing telling me.”
“Are you mad?”
“At you?” I smiled sadly. “Never.”
He leaned against me.
“Are you gonna follow him?”
“Yes.”
Leo seemed to think about that.
May you like
Then he whispered the sentence that made everything suddenly feel urgent in a different way:
“Please do it before Dad says we’re going away for a long time.”
