Chapter 3
The next afternoon, Malcolm picked Cody up from school. Patrick had given permission. Jillian learned about it when she came home and found Cody at the kitchen table with a Bannon Materials employee badge clipped to his hoodie.
She stared at it. “What’s that?”
Cody looked down. “Grandpa had it made.”
“For what?”
“He showed me the dispatch floor.”
“You went to the company?”
“Yeah.” His face brightened. “It’s weirdly cool. They have this huge screen showing every truck route.”
Jillian sat beside him. “Did you have fun?”
“Actually, yeah.”
She meant what she said next. “I’m glad.”
Cody studied her carefully. Then his expression changed. “Grandpa asked if I wanted to work there this summer.”
Jillian felt the first cold threat of concern. “What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
“Why?”
Cody touched Shawn’s watch. “He said Uncle Shawn gave every summer to the family.”
Jillian lowered her voice. “That still doesn’t answer my question.”
Cody looked at her. For a second, he seemed much younger than sixteen. “I don’t know what I’m supposed to want anymore.”
That night, after Cody went upstairs, Patrick’s phone lit up on the counter. A message from Malcolm appeared. Patrick read it, then turned the screen face down before Jillian could see.
But she had already caught the first sentence.
I put Cody’s name on the summer roster.
Patrick said nothing. And for the first time, Jillian understood Malcolm Bannon’s greatest talent. He rarely demanded anything. He simply arranged the world until saying no felt like betrayal. And Cody was already beginning to believe him.
The following Sunday, the Bannon family gathered again at Malcolm’s house. Jillian noticed the chair before she noticed anything else.
Shawn’s chair was still empty.
Malcolm had changed the flowers in the dining room. The black funeral ribbons were gone. The framed photographs from the memorial had been moved back into the study. Even the housekeeper had stopped speaking in whispers.
But the chair remained untouched. No one sat in it. No one placed a coat over it. No one even brushed against the back. It had become less like furniture and more like a boundary.
Cody noticed it too. Jillian could tell because his eyes moved toward it when they entered the room, then quickly away.
Malcolm greeted him warmly. “There he is.”
Cody gave him an awkward smile. “Hey, Grandpa.”
“You bring that watch?”
Cody lifted his wrist. Malcolm nodded with approval.
Jillian said nothing. She had spent most of the week trying not to turn every gesture into evidence. Cody had enjoyed visiting Bannon Materials. That was real. Malcolm had loved Shawn. That was real too. And Patrick was right about one thing—grief made people cling to strange things.
Maybe she was seeing manipulation where there was only a grandfather trying to keep part of his son alive.
She wanted to believe that.
Dinner began quietly. Then Malcolm said, “We’re doing the heritage dinner on the twenty-ninth.”
Patrick stopped cutting his steak. Jillian looked at him. “What’s the heritage dinner?”
Malcolm answered before Patrick could. “Nothing exciting. A few longtime business partners. We’ve done one every few years.”
Patrick added, “It’s mostly tradition.”
Malcolm looked at Cody. “I’d like you there this year.”
Cody hesitated. “Why?”
Malcolm smiled. “Because you’re old enough to start meeting people who knew your uncle before you were born.”
It sounded harmless. Jillian almost hated how harmless it sounded.
“Is it a company event?” she asked.
“Partly.” Malcolm lifted his wine glass. “Bannon Materials didn’t survive forty years because we only knew people when we needed something from them.” Patrick nodded. “That’s true.”
Malcolm continued. “Relationships matter. History matters.” He looked at Cody. “And someday, you should know the people who helped build what your family has.”
Cody pushed a potato around his plate. “I might be busy.”
Malcolm’s expression did not change. “With what?”
“The animation program.”
Jillian watched him closely. Cody had not yet told Malcolm he had applied. Malcolm placed his fork down. “Brooklyn.”
Cody looked surprised. “Dad told you?”
“That’s good, Cody.”
The tension in Jillian’s shoulders eased slightly. Malcolm did not laugh. He did not call animation childish. Instead, he asked questions. How long was the program? Six weeks. Did Cody stay there? During the week. What did they teach? Storyboarding, character animation, some 3D stuff.
Malcolm nodded as though Cody were describing a business course. “Sounds useful.”
Cody looked relieved.
Then Malcolm added, “The heritage dinner is before the program starts.”
There it was. A small sentence. Nothing threatening. Nothing unreasonable.
“You could do both,” Malcolm said.
Cody looked at Patrick. Patrick nodded. “Of course.”
Jillian watched Cody’s face. He smiled. But it was the smile he used when adults had already decided something and he did not know how to disagree.
Later, while coffee was being served, Jillian went upstairs looking for the bathroom. As she passed the small den near the staircase, she saw something white on the carpet. An index card.
She picked it up. Cody’s drawing. A huge dining chair filled most of the page. In the center sat a tiny boy, his feet nowhere near the floor.
Jillian turned the card over. Nothing written on the back.
She stood there for several seconds. Then she heard Cody’s voice downstairs.
“Grandpa, can I ask you something?”
Jillian returned to the dining room. Malcolm was showing Cody an old company photograph. Shawn stood in the center, maybe twenty years old, arms crossed, trying not to smile.
Cody pointed at him. “Did Uncle Shawn always want to work here?”
The room changed. Patrick looked toward Malcolm. Malcolm studied the photograph.
“No.”
Cody blinked. “He didn’t?”
“When your uncle was around your age, he wanted to leave New Jersey. For everything. Arizona. Motorcycles. No boss. No family telling him when to come home.”
Cody smiled. “That sounds like Uncle Shawn.”
“It was.” Malcolm’s expression softened. “He left for a while.”
Patrick frowned. “You never told me that.”
“You were young.”
“What made him come back?” Cody asked.
Malcolm looked directly at him. “The family needed him.”
Cody’s smile disappeared.
Malcolm continued carefully. “Shawn understood something most young men don’t understand until much later.”
“What?”
May you like
“That freedom isn’t always doing whatever you want.” Malcolm touched the edge of Shawn’s photograph. “Sometimes freedom means knowing what matters enough to give something up.”
No one spoke. Jillian felt the card in her pocket.
