Chapter 2
That afternoon at West Ridge High School, Jillian was finishing a meeting with a sophomore who had been suspended for fighting when someone knocked on her office door.
Renee Lawson, the school’s digital arts teacher, stood outside holding a laptop. “Do you have a minute?”
“Sure. Come in.”
Renee stepped inside. “Has Cody told you?”
Jillian immediately thought about the card. “Told me what?”
Renee’s expression changed. “Oh.”
That single sound told Jillian that Cody had kept something important from home.
Renee sat down. “Cody applied to the Brooklyn Summer Animation Intensive.”
Jillian blinked.
“The six-week program. You know it.”
“I know people fight to get into it.”
“Exactly.” Renee opened the laptop. “He made the semi-final round.”
Jillian stared at the screen. There was Cody’s name. Cody Bannon. Portfolio under review.
Renee smiled. “Shawn helped him.”
Jillian looked up sharply. “Shawn?”
“He brought Cody to the open house in August.”
Jillian had no idea.
Renee clicked a video file. “I think you should see this.”
The screen went black. Then a simple animated boy appeared inside a house filled with doors. Every time the boy reached for one, an adult hand appeared and closed it. Another door. Another closed. Finally, the boy stopped trying. He took a pencil from his pocket and drew his own door directly onto the wall.
The animation ended before he opened it.
Jillian stared at the black screen. “What happens next?”
Renee shook her head. “He hasn’t finished it.”
Jillian looked again at Cody’s name. For the first time, she wondered whether the quiet boy living upstairs had been trying to tell them something long before Shawn died.
That evening, the Bannon family gathered around Malcolm’s table. Shawn’s chair remained empty. And before dinner was over, Malcolm would place something on Cody’s wrist that would make Jillian understand exactly why her stepson had been drawing doors.
Because someone had already begun closing them.
Malcolm Bannon’s dining room was too large for seven people. The table could seat fourteen comfortably, but since Shawn’s death, no one wanted to sit near the chair at Malcolm’s right hand. Shawn’s chair. It remained empty. No one had discussed it. No one needed to.
Malcolm sat at the head of the table wearing a dark sweater instead of a suit. At seventy-one, he had the kind of face that looked severe until he smiled. Tonight, he smiled often. He asked Patrick about work. He asked Jillian about the students at West Ridge. He remembered that Cody had a chemistry test that week.
Nothing about him looked like the dangerous patriarch Jillian sometimes heard people whisper about. He looked like a grieving father trying to keep dinner normal.
That made what happened next harder to recognize.
“You’re quiet tonight,” Malcolm said to Cody.
Cody looked up from his plate. “Just tired.”
“School?”
“Yeah.”
Malcolm nodded. “Your father was useless before ten in the morning at your age.”
Patrick laughed. “I’m still useless before ten.” The table relaxed. Even Cody smiled.
Then Malcolm reached into the pocket of his sweater.
“I found something yesterday.”
He placed a watch beside Cody’s plate. It was old. Nothing flashy. A scratched stainless steel Hamilton with a worn brown leather strap.
Patrick stopped chewing. “Is that Shawn’s?”
Malcolm nodded. “He wore it almost every day for twenty years.”
Cody stared at the watch. Jillian saw his throat move.
Malcolm picked it up. “I thought you should have it.”
Cody immediately shook his head. “Grandpa, I can’t.”
“Why?”
“It was Uncle Shawn’s.”
“That’s why.”
Malcolm did not push the watch toward him. He waited. Silence did the work.
Finally, Cody held out his wrist.
Malcolm fastened the strap around it. It was slightly too large.
“There,” Malcolm said softly.
For one brief moment, Jillian felt tears rise in her eyes. It was beautiful. A grandfather giving his grandson something that belonged to the son he had buried twelve days earlier.
Then Malcolm added, “Shawn was seventeen when he started working summers with me.”
Patrick’s expression changed slightly. Jillian noticed.
Cody looked down at the watch. “What did he do?”
“Whatever needed doing. Swept floors. Loaded trucks. Answered phones badly.” Malcolm smiled. “He hated every minute for the first month.”
Cody laughed. “Sounds like him.”
“He learned.” Malcolm leaned back. “Eventually, he understood there’s something good about knowing where you come from.”
The conversation moved on. But Jillian did not. She watched Cody touch the watch twice during dessert.
After dinner, Malcolm asked him to come outside. “Want to see your uncle’s truck?”
Cody hesitated, then nodded. Jillian started to follow, but Patrick touched her arm. “Give them a minute.”
Through the kitchen window, Jillian watched Malcolm lead Cody toward the detached garage. Patrick poured coffee.
“He’s been doing better today.”
“Your dad?”
Patrick nodded. “This is the first time I’ve seen him eat a full meal since Shawn died.”
Jillian looked through the glass. Malcolm opened the garage door. Inside sat Shawn’s old blue pickup. Cody walked slowly toward it.
“Patrick.”
“Yeah.”
“Did you know Shawn took Cody to Brooklyn?”
Patrick frowned. “What?”
“For the animation program.”
Patrick’s surprise was genuine. “No.”
“Apparently, he took him to an open house.”
Patrick looked toward the garage. “Shawn never mentioned it. Neither did Cody.”
He rubbed his jaw. “He probably didn’t want to get everyone excited before he got accepted.”
Jillian thought about the unfinished film. The boy drawing his own door. “Maybe.”
Several minutes later, Cody and Malcolm returned. Cody looked lighter than he had all week. Malcolm had one hand on his shoulder.
“Your son understands logistics better than half the people I pay,” Malcolm told Patrick.
Cody rolled his eyes. “I looked at one truck.”
“One good truck.”
They laughed. In the car home, Cody talked more than usual. He explained how Shawn used to drive deliveries when the company only had six trucks. He described the warehouse system Malcolm had shown him.
“It’s actually kind of interesting.”
Jillian smiled. “You’re allowed to think it’s interesting.”
Cody looked at her. “You’re not mad?”
“Why would I be?”
“I don’t know.”
She turned in her seat. “You can like animation and your family’s business at the same time.”
Cody looked out the window. “Grandpa says adults don’t always get both.”
Patrick glanced at him in the rearview mirror. “What does that mean?”
Cody shrugged. “He said Uncle Shawn wanted to leave once.”
Patrick’s hands tightened slightly on the steering wheel. “When?”
“I don’t know. Grandpa said Shawn thought about moving away when he was young. But when the family needed him, he stayed.”
Jillian watched Patrick. He had gone quiet.
May you like
Cody continued. “Grandpa said, ‘That’s what responsibility means.'”
No one spoke for several blocks.
