Billionaire, I Am Not Your Wife! novel Chapter 228

Chapter 223

Chapter 223: After The Gate.

CAMERON.

Driving back to the house was a lot calmer than when we were going out. We were more relaxed driving back because we had received something and were holding it carefully, the way you carry something you consider fragile.

My mother was crying throughout as we drove home. She wiped her face constantly to clean tears with the handkerchief. Her head turned towards the window. I noticed that her disposition was that of a woman who had decided her feelings were hers to manage. And not anyone else’s to witness. My father watched the city with his window expression, storing something in the place where he kept things that mattered.

I focused on driving. Sedona was very still in the front seat. Not the managed stillness of before the gate, the other kind. The kind that came after, when something you’d been bracing for had finally happened and the brace released and your body didn’t know yet what to do with the space where the tension had been. She was looking through the windscreen at the December streets going past, and she was seemingly not interested in anything that I know.

I refused to take to her. Some things needed the drive. From the backseat, Lake was delivering a full

report.

“He is taller than I expected,” Lake said. “Based on the photograph on Aunt Sedona’s phone, he looked of medium height, but in real life, he is tall. His backpack was on one shoulder, which is not the correct way; the correct way is both shoulders, but a lot of people do it wrong.” A pause while he consulted his

memory.

“He wore a dark blue coat. He was holding his hat in his hand. He took off his heart to get some fresh air.

Drew was listening with the quiet absorption he brought to incoming data. He did not interrupt. He waited for the report to be completed.

“He waved with both arms, Lake said. “Which means he was very happy. When you wave with one arm, it is polite. When you wave with both arms, it is an actual feeling.”\

I looked in the rearview mirror. Lucian was already looking at me. His expression said: Our son just accurately described emotional semaphore.

As soon as we alighted from the car, my mother went directly to the kitchen when we got back.

This was how she processed things; she fed people on the other side of feelings, as if the meal was the transition ritual, the thing that moved everyone from one state to the next. I had watched her do this my entire life, and I had never once thought to question it, and I did not question it now. I simply sat at the kitchen table and let it happen around me, the particular industry of her, the sounds of a kitchen being used properly.

By the time everyone had settled, there was food on the table. Lake ate with the focused efficiency of a child who had expended significant observational energy and needed to refuel. Drew ate beside him, notebook open now, writing something I didn’t try to read. Lucian poured water for everyone without being

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<Chapter 223

asked My father sat at the head of the table with the settled quality he had when he had finished processing something and reached a position.

Claim

Sedona ate a full plate. This was the detail I noted. Not dramatically, just filed it, the way I filed things that mattered. She had not always eaten full plates. There had been months, before Seattle and Dr. Mitchell and the slow work of rebuilding, when she ate the way, someone ate when they had forgotten that eating was for them and not just a function to perform. She sat at the table with our parents and Lucian and the children, and she finished/everything on her plate, and she was present. She was fully present, not managing the room from a distance, not occupying it partially.

I noted it and said nothing about it, because some things you note and keep. The house went quieter by degrees.

Lake went up first, at Lucian’s indication, with the minimal negotiation of a child who was genuinely tired and had enough self-awareness to know it even if he would not say so directly. Drew followed with his notebook. My parents went up together, my mother pausing to put a hand briefly on Sedona’s shoulder as she passed, saying nothing, which was its own complete sentence. Lucian touched my arm in the hallway, the quiet acknowledgment of a man who understood when a sibling needed the room, and went up.

The kitchen was ours. I poured two glasses of water and sat across from Sedona, and put one in front of her. She looked at the glass, turned, and looked at me.

“Are you alright?” I asked.

She was quiet for a moment. Not searching for the answer, she had it. She was just deciding which version to give me.

“He waved with both arms,” she said.

“He did.”

“He’s alright.” She said it with the specific quality of someone who had been holding a fear for a long time. And had just been given evidence against it. “He’s an actual person with friends and opinions, and he waves with both arms when he means it. He’s alright.”

“Yes,” I said.

She looked at the table. Something moved through her expression, not resolved, not finished, but different from what it had been this morning. The particular quality of a day that had given you something real when you had not been certain it would.

A pause.

“Three days,” she said.

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