Chapter 19: Stay

By Friday, Teagan's clip of Gabe on the lawyer's porch had half a million views.

The caption said: My brother, back for the money.

Gabe read the comments standing at the kitchen sink with his jaw set, and then he turned the phone face down.

"Don't," I said.

"I'm not doing anything."

"You're deciding something. You do it with your back."

It rained all that afternoon, steady and gray against the windows.

He wiped his hands on a towel and did not look at me.

"If I read that will on Saturday, I become the story," he said. "The disgruntled stepson. They'll say I forged it myself."

"They can say it."

"You have a hospital that wants you back and a sister you're tied to for life."

"I could be a thing that happened to you in October."

"Gabe."

"I'm saying what's fair."

"Read me your father's letter."

He frowned at me.

"Go on. You've been carrying it in that pocket since Sunday."

He took the folded page out of his shirt and read it standing in the middle of the kitchen.

His voice cracked at the last line, the one about his mother's name.

When he stopped, I crossed the floor and took the page out of his hand.

I put it down on the table, very gently.

"Your father said take it where it can be seen," I said. "He did not say do it alone."

"Claire."

"I love you."

He went still.

I had not planned to say it.

It came out plainly, in a farmhouse kitchen in the rain, with his towel still in his fist.

"I'm not going back to my old life," I said. "I told you that already. I'm telling you the other thing now."

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