“I’ve had eight months of your promises. I want real deeds. Money actually in accounts. An agreement signed in front of a judge, with teeth in it.”

“I agree to all of it,” Jason said.

“And you don’t get to drop by once a month whenever it suits you,” she went on. “If you set a date with these kids, you show up. And if you truly can’t, you give them real notice — so that Owen is never again waiting by a window on his birthday for a father who isn’t coming. That part isn’t negotiable, and it isn’t about the law.”

Jason closed his eyes. “I promise,” he said.

George took the paper and began, in his engineer’s hand, adding conditions — clean, specific, enforceable.

Ruth insisted that medical bills and school costs be kept separate from the monthly support, so they couldn’t be quietly folded in and lost.