"Wait!Hang back a sec, Dec," Zoey says, just as I push off the counter to follow them out. "I need to talk to you about something."
I freeze.
Beck, predictably, freezes too. He has one boot already through the door, but his head swivels back like a dog who heard the word "treat."
"Ooooh. Hang back.Captain's in trouble." He saunters back in, arms crossed, doing his best impression of our actual father. "I'll stay too. Big brother stuff… I should be here. You know, for Mase."
"Youarethe youngest. Nowget out!"
"No, see, this is afamilymatter, and I amfamily—"
I reach over and smack him upside the head.
"OW—" He rubs his scalp so his hair starts sticking up all over the place. "You're so abusive, I'm telling Mom—"
"GO."
He goes, grumbling something about elder abuse and threatening to report me to HR, whoever that would even be in this scenario, and finally the front door bangs shut behind him.
Through the window I watch him chase Biscuit across the lawn while Mason loads bags into the trunk, and Diego stands on the porch with his arms crossed like a furious, gorgeous prison guard.
I turn back to the tablet.
Zoey's just looking at me and I hate how much she looks like Mom right now. Not in a cruel way, not in the way that makes my stomach turn, but in thetiredway.
"So. You talked to Mom again?" I ask, looking over my shoulder to make sure there isn't an audience.
Zoey nods. "Yeah. How are they taking it?" She jerks her head to gesture behind me.
"Like only a Morrison can." I grunt, crossing my arms. "Deny, deflect, and pray it resolves itself."
Zoey snorts. "It's worked for thirty years."
"Has it, though? Or did it just get us to the point where Mom is sobbing into her sourdough and Dad is googling 'how to split a boat in a divorce.'"
She winces. "Okay, when you put it like that—"
I glance over my shoulder again. Still no sign of Beck or Mason lurking, thank God.
"So what exactly did Mom say?" I ask, because someone has to. "How bad was the call?"
"Bad." She exhales, long and shaky. "She cried for like twenty minutes, Dec. Full onsobbing."
"Fuck."
"She kept asking me what she did wrong. Like it's her fault he decided to—" She presses her lips together hard, swallows it down. "She wants to know if she should move. Sell the house. But she doesn't know where to evenstart."
"She could come stay with you. In Chilmore."
"Where, Declan? I live above abakery.I've got one bedroom and a daughter who already shares space with my flour delivery schedule. There's nowhere to put her."
"Right." I drag a hand down my face. "Right, yeah. Stupid idea."
"It's not stupid. It's just—" She shakes her head. "There's no good answer here. There's no version of this where it doesn't completely flip her life upside down."
We sit there in silence for a beat, the two of us staring at each other through a screen, three thousand miles apart, both trying to solve a problem that doesn't have a fix.
"So Beck still doesn't know the whole of it?" Zoey asks quietly. "He still thinks this is just... a normal divorce. Irreconcilable differences. Boring grown-up stuff."