When my grandfather was still alive, Gregory sat at his table like a man auditioning for respect and somehow won it. Granddad Beaumont had built half his reputation buying ignored properties and turning them into places families actually used—libraries, markets, mixed-use buildings that didn’t look ashamed of the neighborhood around them. Gregory listened when he talked. Asked questions. Carried lumber with him one summer on a small adaptive-reuse project outside Tacoma. My grandfather liked men who used their backs before they used their mouths.
At twenty-eight, standing on a muddy riverfront parcel with hard hats under our arms and the wind pushing my hair across my mouth, Gregory kissed me and said, ‘We’re going to build something that outlives both of us.’
Back then I believed he meant the district proposal spread between us in a weatherproof tube.
Then I believed he meant our marriage.
Then, after the two pink lines and the first grainy heartbeat and the sonogram I kept tucked in my planner, I believed he meant our child.
The worst betrayals are never only one thing. They rot outward.
