I allowed the silence to remain.
“I won’t cross a line,” he said quickly. “Keep the job. I’ll back off. We can go back to how it was.”
“I started picturing it.”
For a long moment, I nearly said yes.
I thought about Mia’s tuition and the mortgage.
Then I realized that staying, even cautiously, would leave me exactly where I’d been. Frozen. Borrowed.
“You’re not a bad man, Harold. You’re a grieving one. And I’ve been leaning so hard that I let the lines blur too.”
I took a breath.
“I can’t keep accepting your help. I’m going to have to leave and follow my own path.”
“You’re not a bad man.”
My boss nodded, looking ashamed.
He offered me a fair severance and a strong reference. No strings attached. I believed him.
***
I drove home with the windows down. Mia was waiting on the porch with her stuffed rabbit, her hair messy from her nap. Rachel was right beside her.
