Chapter 16
Caleb earned unsupervised breakfast before he earned an afternoon alone with Milo.
Small trust.
Repeatable.
He arrived early every Saturday.
No expensive gifts.
No horses.
No Mafia stories.
Pancakes.
Toy trucks.
Ordinary fatherhood.
One morning Milo asked him:
“Do you want Grandpa job?”
I heard about it afterward.
Caleb told him:
“Sometimes.”
Good answer.
Then Milo asked:
“Can’t both work?”
Again.
Child logic humiliating adults.
Caleb said:
“Yes.”
That answer mattered more than declaring ambition dead.
I did not need him to become unambitious.
I needed him to stop treating another person’s existence as the obstacle to his worth.
He eventually returned to limited family work.
Not field command.
Logistics.
Something he was actually good at.
He earned respect without standing on my absence.
Elise remained away.
Judith found work at another stable outside Rourke territory.
Martin told me she had written Milo an apology but never sent it because she did not want to intrude.
May you like
Maybe that was growth too.
Not every regret needs delivery.
