POV: Ivory
I stepped aside because refusing would have been an answer, and the wrong one. Diana walked into the living room and her eyes moved across every surface — Levi's notebook on the side table, Lily's purple backpack on the hook, Luke's sneakers at the entrance with the laces still tied.
"I apologize for the short notice," she said, her pen already uncapped. "Pre-meeting visits help me update the file with current conditions, and it benefits everyone to have accurate information."
"Of course, I appreciate that. Can I get you some coffee?"
"No, thank you — I won't take much of your time."
Hank was in his chair by the window, Jolene beside him adjusting his blanket with practiced efficiency. Diana paused in the doorway.
"I don't believe we've met."
"Jolene Banks." She stood and extended her hand without hesitation. "I'm Kameron's mother — I help with Hank's care and the children's school schedule."
"How long have you been in the household?"
"Since October. I stay in town and come out daily."
Diana wrote something and moved on, and I followed her down the hall toward the children's rooms. Lily's walls were covered in drawings — horses, families, a purple sunset above her bed, the figures in every picture drawn in groups of five.
Luke's room was spare, bed made with military corners, the family photo on his nightstand the only decoration he'd allowed himself. Levi's room was deliberate in a way that extended past neatness — books alphabetized, desk clear except for the current notebook, bed corners pressed sharp.
Diana wrote steadily through all of it and offered nothing back.
"The children seem well-settled," she said finally, her voice giving nothing away. "Are there any changes to school enrollment or extracurricular activities since the last report?"
"No changes — same school, same routines." I kept my hands still at my sides. "Lily started riding lessons in September, but everything else is the same."
"Good." She made a note. "I'd like to see the full property now — the outbuildings mentioned in the initial report."
My hand pressed flat against my thigh. "Of course, I'll walk you out."
The cottage door opened onto exactly what it was — too clean, too still, the bed made with hotel precision and no dent in the pillow.
A single rinsed mug sat on the kitchen counter beside a newspaper three days old, and one toothbrush stood in a cup by the sink.
Diana opened the closet — Kameron's shirts spaced at even intervals, enough to suggest occupancy, not enough to suggest a life. She touched one sleeve and let it fall back, then turned and looked at the mug on the counter.
"Does Mr. Banks spend most of his evenings here?"
"He does." I held her gaze without blinking. "The cottage gives him proximity to the livestock and the early morning work."
"And the proximity to the main house is convenient for the family arrangement."
"It is."
She wrote two lines, closed the notebook. "Thank you for your time, Ms. Hill — I'll see you at the meeting."
The gray sedan backed down the drive and disappeared past the fence line. I went inside and pressed both palms flat on the kitchen table, the wood warm from the afternoon sun, and stared at Kameron's truck through the window until my jaw unclenched and my breathing evened out.
Jolene found me on the back porch that evening, sat down on the step beside me, close but not touching, and folded her arms across her knees.
"You held up well in there," she said. "Diana's thorough — that's not a bad thing, even when it doesn't feel good."
"It felt like she was cataloging everything we got wrong, Jolene. Every room, every detail — she opened the closet and counted his shirts."
"She was cataloging everything, period." Jolene's voice carried no softness added to make it easier. "That's her job, and you gave her nothing to flag."
"I gave her a cottage that nobody actually lives in, and she knew it."
"You gave her a woman holding her family together under conditions most people wouldn't survive." Jolene turned to look at me directly.
"She sees a lot of homes, Ivory — a lot of them falling apart, a lot of them pretending harder than you are."
I didn't answer, and for a while we sat with the wind moving through the grass. Her hand covered mine — brief, warm, deliberate.
"You're a good mother." She kept her eyes on the horizon. "I know what a bad one looks like because I was one, and I've spent every year since learning the difference."
I pulled my hand back — not harsh, a reflex. Jolene didn't flinch, just folded her hands in her lap and watched the sky go dark the way someone does when they've said what they came to say.
The house went quiet after ten. Colt was beside me in bed, the space on my other side empty and cold, twenty yards of yard between it and where Kameron actually slept.
His footsteps came across the porch just past two — the careful placement of a man who had memorized every board that creaked.
I was already at the kitchen table, the baby pressing against my ribs with the steady insistence she'd been developing for weeks.
"You should be sleeping," he said from the doorway.
"So should you."
He crossed the kitchen and set both hands on my shoulders, warm and heavy and certain, and I leaned back into his chest and closed my eyes.
"How bad was it today?"
"She looked at the cottage for a long time." I exhaled and let my head rest against him. "She asked if you spend your evenings there, and I said yes, and she wrote something and didn't tell me what."
"What did Sue say?"
"I haven't called her yet — I didn't want to hear it out loud."
"We knew this part would be hard, Ivory."
"Knowing doesn't make it smaller, Kam." My throat tightened and I pressed my fingers into the table edge.
"Every night you walk back out there, and every morning I wake up reaching for a side of the bed that's cold, and now there's a government file documenting exactly how empty that cottage is."
"It's not forever." I said what I truly believed.
"You keep saying that."
The baby kicked, and his hands tightened once on my shoulders.
"She does that every time you're close," I said. "Every single time."
He pressed his mouth to the top of my head and held it there, and neither of us moved for what remained of the five minutes the arrangement allowed.
When he let go I heard his boots on the porch and the door closing with the same careful silence, and I sat at the table with his warmth still on my shoulders and did not move.
My phone lit the counter. Sue Cho: "Diana called me. She wants to add the home visit notes to the file before the meeting. Let's talk about it."