Chapter 12 - The Exile’s Kitchen
Frank was sitting on the old corduroy sofa with Ellie asleep against his shoulder, her small, even breaths rising and falling against his flannel shirt while a rerun of A Christmas Story played softly on the screen.
He looked up as Hannah walked back into the living room.
“Was that him?” Frank asked softly.
“That was him,” Hannah said, sitting down in the armchair across from the sofa and pulling a fleece blanket over her knees.
“What did he say?”
“He wanted me to go back and sign a statement saying I provoked her so he wouldn't lose his share of the commercial property.”
Frank let out a dry, humorless breath through his nose. “Like mother, like son. Always looking at the ledger, never looking at the people standing right in front of them.”
“Do you think he’ll ever change, Frank?” Hannah asked, her voice dropping into a quiet, vulnerable register she rarely let anyone see.
Frank looked down at Ellie’s dark curls resting against his chest. “Only if he hits rock bottom, Hannah. As long as there’s a safety net woven out of Judith’s money and approval, Ryan will never learn how to stand on his own two feet. Some men spend their whole lives being sons because they’re too terrified to grow up and be men.”
“And you?” Hannah asked, offering a small, tired smile. “Did it take you seventy years?”
“Better late than never,” Frank muttered, a genuine, warm smile crinkling the corners of his eyes. “Besides, I’ve got a brand-new project. Arthur Vance tells me I can rent a small workshop down in OTR for three hundred dollars a month. I’m going to start restoring antique gas engines and lawnmowers. Real ones. Not the plastic junk they sell at Home Depot.”
Hannah laughed—a real, deep, cleansing laugh that chased the last remaining chill of the previous twenty-four hours out of the room.
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“You’re going to be a mechanic in your seventies?”
“Beats sitting in a brick colonial listening to Judith complain about the dust on the wainscoting,” Frank said.
