Her lower lip trembled.
“Can the scarf go back?”
“Yes.”
“Right now?”
“Right now.”
We went upstairs together.
I opened the box.
Sophie found the scarf and held it to her face.
I expected her to cry.
She didn’t.
She carried it downstairs and put it back on the hook.
Then she looked at me.
“You can put your coat there too.”
There were five hooks.
Evan’s old jacket remained on one.
Megan’s scarf returned to another.
Sophie’s purple coat hung on the third.
I put mine on the fourth.
The fifth stayed empty.
That arrangement remained for months.
In January, my leave ended.
Mark called again.
“We need an answer.”
I already knew what he meant.
The firm could let me work remotely for several weeks.
Not indefinitely.
Our projects required site visits, client meetings, and a Denver presence.
He offered me a reduced role through March.
After that, I either returned or resigned.
I thanked him.
Then I spent two nights looking at job listings around Richmond.
Every listing paid less.
Some much less.
None carried the prestige or path I had spent years building.
I felt resentful.
That surprised me.
I loved Sophie.
I also hated what I was losing.
Those two truths existed together.
One night, after she went to bed, I sat alone at Evan’s kitchen table staring at salary numbers.
I thought, for the first time, I could still say no.
Temporary guardianship did not make the future irreversible.
There were relatives.
There were processes.
There were alternatives.
Nobody would call me a monster.
At least not to my face.
I imagined Denver.
My office.
My own bed.
My colleagues talking about bridge loads instead of reading levels.
Claire.
The future I had understood.
Then I heard bare feet upstairs.
Sophie appeared at the kitchen doorway.
“You’re supposed to be asleep.”
“I had a dream.”
“Bad?”
She nodded.
I closed the laptop.
She climbed onto the chair beside me.
“What were you doing?”
“Looking for jobs.”
“Your job is in Colorado.”
“Right now.”
“Are you going back?”
There was fear again.
I hated that my private uncertainty had become something she could sense from across a house.
“I’m looking for work here.”
She said nothing.
Then she rested her head against my arm.