“I’m sorry.”

The words were quiet. Not enough. But perhaps sincere.

I wanted to cross the room and comfort him. Every instinct pulled me toward the boy who once ran into my arms after nightmares. But Helen’s letter felt heavy in my hand, almost like a warning.

Love without limits had helped lead us here. So I stayed seated. “Being sorry is a beginning,” I said. “Not a payment.”

Bradley nodded as tears slipped silently down his face. Carol turned toward the darkening beach outside the window, and I wondered what she’d imagined this family might be when Helen first found her — whether she’d hoped to be welcomed, whether she’d feared exactly this, whether she already understood how grief and money can turn people connected by blood into strangers.

That night, Bradley slept on the couch inside the cabin he’d mocked.