The letter arrives on a Tuesday, three weeks before Christmas. Expensive paper, my father's handwriting—a ghost I haven't dealt with in years.
Jasmine, Your mother tells me you have a son. Six years old. The same age you were when I remarried. I'm dying—cancer, the doctors give me three months. I'd like to meet my grandson before the end. There are also legal matters to discuss. Debts that must be settled. —Ned Johnson
I crumple it, then smooth it out, then crumple it again. Vlad finds me like that, surrounded by paper fragments.
"What's wrong?"
I hand him the letter. He reads it, his expression darkening.
"Your father?"
"Stepfather, technically. My real father died when I was sixteen. Ned married my mother when I was six, brought his daughter Elisa from his first marriage. We never got along."
"And now he's dying."
"And now he wants something. He always wants something."
"The debts he mentions?"
"Probably gambling. Maybe worse. He destroyed my mother's savings before she divorced him ten years ago."
Devon appears in the doorway, violin case in hand. He's started taking lessons with the symphony conductor who visits Blackwood—another privilege of the Dickenson name.
"Mom? You okay?"
"Fine, baby."
He sets down his violin, comes over. At six, he's already too perceptive. "You're crying."
"Just some bad news about someone I used to know."
"Someone died?"
"Someone's dying."
He climbs into my lap, still small enough that I can hold all of him. "Do you need to say goodbye?"
"I don't know."
"When Hamster died," he says, referring to the class pet, "Ms. Williams said sometimes we need to say goodbye even when we're angry, because after they're gone, we can't anymore."
Out of the mouths of babes.
"He wants to meet you," I tell Devon. "He's your... grandfather, sort of."
"Sort of?"
"It's complicated."
"Everything in our family is complicated," Devon observes, which makes Vlad laugh.
"Too true," he agrees. "But complicated doesn't mean bad."
"Will you come with us?" I ask Vlad. "If we go?"
"Of course."
But when Saturday comes, Vlad has an emergency board meeting he can't miss. Leo volunteers to accompany us instead.
"Absolutely not," I say.
"Why not? I'm charming with dying people. They love me."
"You're charming like a snake is charming."
"Exactly. Hypnotic." He grins. "Besides, you need someone with you, and I'm available."
Which is how I end up driving to my stepfather's house with Leo Dickenson riding shotgun and Devon in the back, asking increasingly uncomfortable questions.
"So he's not your real dad?"
"No."
"But he married Grandma Helen?"
"Yes."
"And then they got divorced?"
"Yes."
"Because he was mean to you?"
"Among other reasons."
Leo glances at me. "Want me to handle this?"
"God, no."
But he turns to Devon anyway. "Sometimes adults make mistakes, marriages that shouldn't happen. Your mother's parents figured that out and fixed it."
"Like you and Dad are fixing things now?" Devon asks me.
"We're not—that's not—"
"We're working on it," Leo interjects smoothly. "Rome wasn't built in a day."
"What does Rome have to do with anything?"
"Everything's connected to Rome if you think about it long enough."
We pull up to a modest house in Queens, paint peeling, yard overgrown. It looks like what it is—a dying man's last stand.
Ned answers the door himself, gaunt and gray but still standing. His eyes go straight to Devon.
"My God," he breathes. "He looks nothing like you."
"Thanks for that observation," I say coldly.
"I didn't mean—come in, please."
The house smells like medicine and old cigarettes. Elisa's there, my stepsister, looking older and meaner than I remember.
"Jasmine," she says, like my name tastes bad. "Still dragging random men around, I see."
"Leo Dickenson," Leo introduces himself with his sharpest smile. "Not random at all. Very specifically chosen."
Elisa's eyes widen. Even she knows the Dickenson name.
"Devon," Ned says, kneeling painfully to the boy's level. "I'm your grandfather."
"Sort of," Devon corrects. "You're Mom's stepfather. That's different."
Ned blinks, taken aback by the child's directness. "You're right. But I'd still like to know you, if that's okay."
Devon looks at me. I nod slightly.
"Okay," Devon agrees. "But only for a little while. I have piano at three."
"Piano? You're musical?"
"He's a prodigy," Leo says proudly, like he had something to do with it. "Gets it from his father."
"His father?" Elisa perks up, sensing gossip. "Who's his father?"
"David Dickenson," Leo announces cheerfully. "My brother. Which makes me Uncle Leo, and Devon heir to about a billion dollars. Give or take."
The silence that follows is deafening.
"You're lying," Elisa finally says.
Leo pulls out his phone, shows them the newspaper article from last week—Dickenson Heir Revealed: Six-Year-Old Son Confirmed. Vlad had tried to keep it quiet, but news like that doesn't stay hidden.
Ned stares at me. "You had a baby with David Dickenson?"
"I had a baby with someone who turned out to be David Dickenson," I correct.
"There's a difference?"
"About six years' worth."
Ned processes this, then laughs—bitter and knowing. "So you landed on your feet after all. Here I was going to offer you my house to clear my debts, but you don't need it, do you?"
"Your debts?"
"Seventy thousand. Borrowed from the wrong people. They'll come after you when I'm gone—you're still listed as next of kin."
"You haven't spoken to me in ten years and you're trying to leave me your debts?"
"I was trying to leave you my house. The debts just come with it."
"Seventy thousand?" Leo interjects. "That's all?"
Everyone turns to stare at him.
"What? That's like, what, a month of Devon's piano lessons? I'll write you a check."
"You can't just—" I start.
"Of course I can. It's pocket change, and it saves us all from this tremendously boring family drama." He pulls out a checkbook—because of course Leo Dickenson carries a checkbook in 2024. "Who do I make it out to?"
"I can't accept—" Ned starts.
"You're dying. Your stepdaughter's son is my nephew. Consider it early inheritance. Or late child support. Whatever makes you feel better about taking it."
He writes the check with a flourish, hands it to Ned.
"Why?" Ned asks.
"Because I'm bored, and this speeds things up." Leo stands. "Devon, would you like to see your grandfather's house? Might be your last chance."
Devon, who's been watching all of this with wide eyes, nods. Ned leads him on a tour, leaving me with Elisa and Leo.
"He's really a Dickenson?" Elisa asks.
"Genetically, legally, and irritatingly," Leo confirms. "Like all the best Dickensons."
"Jasmine always did have a horseshoe up her ass," Elisa mutters.
"Is that what we're calling it now?" Leo's voice is dangerously pleasant. "Because from where I'm sitting, it looks more like survival. Your stepsister raised a brilliant child alone for six years while you did... what exactly?"
"I don't need you to defend me," I tell him.
"Of course not. But it's fun watching her squirm."
We leave an hour later. Devon hugs Ned goodbye—my sweet, generous boy, showing kindness to someone who never showed me any.
"Thank you for coming," Ned tells me quietly. "I know I wasn't... I wasn't a good father to you."
"No," I agree. "You weren't."
"But you're a good mother to him."
"I try."
"The money—"
"Thank Leo."
"I will. But Jasmine... be careful. That world, their world—it eats people alive."
"So does poverty," I remind him. "At least this way, Devon gets eaten by something with better table manners."
As we drive away, Leo says, "Well, that was delightfully dysfunctional."
"Why did you really pay him?"
"Because Devon doesn't need that hanging over his head. He's got enough complications being a Dickenson without inherited debt collectors."
"That was... kind."
"I have moments. Don't tell anyone."
"Uncle Leo?" Devon says from the back seat. "Was that man really dying?"
"Yes."
"He looked sad."
"Dying people often are."
"Will you be sad when you die?"
Leo considers this. "Probably not. I'll be too busy annoying the angels."
"There aren't angels where you're going," I mutter.
"See? Even your mother knows I'm special."
Devon laughs, and somehow, despite everything—the dying man, the bitter sister, the debts and revelations—the day doesn't feel entirely wasted.
That night, Vlad finds me in the library.
"Leo told me what happened."
"Leo has a big mouth."
"He also has a big checkbook, apparently."
"He didn't need to do that."
"No," Vlad agrees, sitting beside me. "But that's Leo. Cruel one moment, inexplicably generous the next. It's his way of maintaining chaos."
"Devon asked if we're fixing things. Us."
"What did you tell him?"
"Leo told him Rome wasn't built in a day."
"Leo's full of wisdom today."
"Are we? Fixing things?"
Vlad pulls me against him, and I let him. "We're building something. Whether it's Rome or not remains to be seen."
"I don't need Rome. I just need stable."
"Stable I can do," he promises, pressing a kiss to my temple. "Stable with occasional chaos, courtesy of Leo."
"And Devon."
"And you."
"I'm not chaotic."
"Jasmine, you turned my entire world upside down by walking into my office. You're beautiful chaos personified."
"Sweet talker."
"It's working?"
I think about Ned dying alone, about debts and abandonment, about Leo's unexpected kindness and Devon's pure heart.
"Yeah," I admit. "It's working."