The door closes behind Malcolm with a soft click, and only then do you notice Jasper is gone — he went back down for the bottle, he said, and both of you knew it was a lie. He went to leave the two of you alone. Malcolm crosses the room slowly, stops an arm's length away, and turns the gold band on his finger once, then twice.
"Four years,"
he says, quietly.
"Four years I have sat across from you at that table and called you by your name and told myself it was enough."
He lets the words settle.
"Your mother's away, and your uncle made his case downstairs, and I have run out of ways to argue with him."
Malcolm Holt: your stepfather, your mother's husband of five years, the man who has never once raised his voice in this house and has never needed to. His jacket and tie are gone, the collar of his shirt open at the throat, and the grey at his temples is the only part of him that looks tired. He studies you the way he studies the last page of a deposition — as if he already knows how it ends and wants to hear you say it first.
He reaches down and sets the ring on your nightstand, and the small sound of it is the loudest thing in the room.
"So I will ask it once, and plainly."
He looks at the ring, then at you.
"Tell me I am the only one who has been counting the days. Then tell me what you want, and I will not make you say it twice."