"Yes," she said. Jacob nodded. He looked at the table. "I want you to be our family," he said. He said it plainly, without decoration, the way he said everything that mattered.
"I want it to be real, not just He stopped. Not just what it is right now. I want it to be a thing that counts." Clara pressed her hands together her lap under the table. "Jacob," she said, "I know it's not my decision."
"He said quickly, I know that. I'm not I'm not trying to push anything. I just" He stopped again. Gathered. "I'm telling you what I want because nobody ever asks me what I want, and I figured I should say it while I had the nerve."
She looked at this boy, this 10-year-old who had dressed his siblings for a woman who never stepped off a stagecoach who had gotten up at 5:00 in the morning when he couldn't sleep and sat alone in the dark kitchen, who had said she'd have liked you about a woman he missed every single day with the quiet ferocity of someone who refused to let grief be a performance. "I want that, too," she said. Jacob looked up. "I want that, too," she said again. "And I think your father does, and I think it's going to happen."
She held his gaze, "but I need you to trust me on the timing. Can you do that?" He held her gaze for a long moment. "Yes," he said. Thomas came back at half past 7:00 with the name of an attorney in his coat pocket and a look on his face that was not hopeful, but was not defeated, either.
It was the look of a man who has assessed the territory and found it difficult and has decided to cross it anyway. His name was Daniel Holt. He was in Abilene. He was expensive. He had won two custody cases in the past year.
"Tom Aldridge is going to vouch for me with the bank for the retainer," Thomas said. He was at the kitchen table with Clara across from him and the children in the other room. "Holt will be here Thursday." "Good," Clara said. "He said the welfare assessment is the central issue.
If Harlow's report says anything that contradicts what she said on the porch." "It won't," Clara said. Thomas looked at her. "She's not a dishonest woman," Clara said. "She may be acting on behalf of her family's interests, but she's not going to file a fraudulent report with the county.
She told us on the porch what her assessment found, and she'll stand by that. Clara paused. What she is going to say is that the household stability is dependent on the continued presence of a housekeeper with no legal tie to the family. And that a housekeeper can leave. Thomas was quiet.
Which is true, Clara said. You're not going to leave. I know that. You know that. She looked at him steadily.