After a minute of silence, I tried, “Rough day, huh?”
He nodded.
“Rough week.”
“Yeah.”
“What can I do?”
Josiah twisted his comforter between his fingers. “You said I was staying here with you. Did you mean it?”
“Yes. Of course. Dad and your mom had it in their wills, that if something happened to both of them, this house comes to the two of us equally, and they wanted me to be your primary guardian.” I’d been stunned to find out that was still in effect. After Dad died, I’d assumed Krystal would run out and change everything to benefit her family. Perhaps her nearly obsessive devotion to Dad had worked in my favour. And in Josiah’s, given the attitudes of the Ontario Thompsons downstairs.
“I heard them talking. Grandma and Aunt Heidi and the others. They were arguing about who’d have to take me. They said my share of the house would be worth half a million dollars, but someone would have to raise another teenager. Grandma said she’d done her bit.”
“Oh.” I went and sat beside him, not touching but close enough if he wanted me. “You’re staying with me. That’s final.”
“What if they fight you? They want the money.”
“No worries. It’s not like I’m nineteen and in school, the way I was when Dad died. I’m twenty-six now, I’ve worked a tough job and I’m earning money, I have a criminal background check already, and the other stuff is in progress. And you’re old enough to tell a judge what you want. They can object all they want, but they’ll be out of luck.”
He turned big eyes on me. “You’re sure?”
“Totally.” I put every ounce of certainty I could into that word.
“Oh.” Suddenly he turned away from me and sobbed.
I wanted to hug him, but he had his arms tightly wrapped around himself. “I’m sorry you were worried.”
“I want to stay here with my school and my friends and my house.”
“You will, I swear.”
Staring at the blank wall, he said, “What if you have to go away on a job again, like last year?”
“I’m not doing that again.” Three months deep undercover had stressed me out in ways I didn’t like to look at too closely. I had a month of compensatory vacation I was taking now, and I hadn’t even decided if I could go back to the force. Definitely, I’d never take an assignment like that again, even if I was proud of the outcome. Mostly. “I promise I’ll be here for you, every day.”
“But you’re a cop. You could get killed.” He flinched and his fingers dug into his arms.
“I could die falling down the stairs too.”
He scrambled down the bed, glaring at me. “Don’t joke about it!”
“Sorry, but Josiah, you know there are lots more dangerous professions than law enforcement, right? We’re at, like, number twenty-two. Even garbage collectors have more fatal injuries.”
Josiah just shook his head.
“I have three more weeks off, anyhow. We’ll talk about it again.” The biggest problem, if I went back into uniform, would be shift work. I wasn’t sure how long a twelve-year-old could be left on their own— and wasn’t about to ask Josiah for his opinion— but overnight was not okay with me. I’d have to figure something out.
Krystal’s mother’s voice carried up the stairs and through the door. “Zeke? Are you up there? Come on down to help and bring Josiah with you.”
I stood. “Do you want to come down and see the neighbours?”
Josiah shook his head and whispered, “I hate this. I hate it all.”
“You don’t have to. Hang out here, and I’ll be back up when the coast is clear.”
“How long until Grandma and Aunt Heidi are gone?”
