Chapter 20 - Breakfast for Five
Dinner became a first date.
The second date was less awkward.
The third involved Erin, who asked Roman questions so invasive Maeve considered abandoning her at the restaurant.
“What are your intentions?”
Roman choked.
Maeve said, “Erin.”
“What? Mom would ask.”
Roman recovered.
“My intentions are to keep asking Maeve what she wants until she gets tired of answering.”
Erin nodded.
“Acceptable.”
Maeve kicked her under the table.
Summer arrived.
The criminal side of the Falcone organization shrank.
Not cleanly.
Not perfectly.
Some old associates left.
Some legitimate businesses survived.
Roman submitted records to investigators where required.
Declan took over a security company after it received proper licensing and outside compliance.
Gabriel moved the freight business entirely aboveboard and complained taxes were organized crime with forms.
Maeve told him not to say that near auditors.
Vittorio eventually accepted a plea rather than face trial on every count.
He would spend years in prison.
Maeve felt no triumph.
Only quiet.
Kathleen’s death finally had a record that named what happened.
Sofia’s death too.
That mattered.
Erin returned to college part-time.
Her kidney function remained stable.
She still had appointments.
Medications.
Uncertainty.
Happy endings did not eliminate follow-up care.
Maeve liked that life was becoming ordinary enough to contain boring problems.
One Sunday morning, she woke before sunrise.
Falcone Manor was quiet.
She walked to the kitchen.
Eggs.
Bacon.
Potatoes.
Flour.
Butter.
She smiled.
At six, the pans started crackling.
At six-thirty, the smell reached upstairs.
At six-forty, Declan appeared.
“Is this a trap?”
“Yes.”
He sat.
Gabriel followed.
“Why are we awake?”
“Because your brother has a meeting.”
Roman entered last.
No suit jacket.
Hair still damp.
He stopped.
The table held five plates.
Roman looked at Maeve.
“Erin?”
“Coming.”
She arrived ten minutes later carrying coffee and complaining about parking.
They ate.
No tests.
No threats.
No blood on walls.
Just breakfast.
Halfway through, Roman broke open a biscuit.
He looked at Maeve.
“Still two folds.”
“Always.”
Erin smiled.
“Mom would approve.”
Roman’s expression softened.
“So would ours.”
For a moment, Kathleen and Sofia seemed present in the only way the dead ever truly returned.
Habit.
Food.
Phrases.
Choices the living kept making.
After breakfast, Maeve collected plates.
Roman stood.
“I can do that.”
“You own dish soap now?”
“I’ve diversified.”
She handed him a plate.
He looked suspicious.
“You’re serious?”
“Yes.”
He smiled.
Then Maeve noticed an envelope on the counter.
No stamp.
No courier mark.
Her stomach tightened automatically.
Old instincts.
Roman saw.
He did not touch it.
“Do you want me to open it?”
Maeve looked at the handwriting.
Mrs. Alvarez.
She laughed.
“False alarm.”
Inside was a photograph.
Sofia and Kathleen in the kitchen.
Different from the others.
Both women were older.
Tired.
Laughing.
Between them sat four chairs.
On the back, Sofia had written:
A HOUSE IS ONLY SAFE WHEN THE PEOPLE INSIDE CAN LEAVE.
Kathleen had added beneath it:
AND WHEN THEY CHOOSE TO COME BACK.
Maeve stared.
Roman read over her shoulder.
Neither spoke.
The sentence settled into the room.
Maeve looked at him.
“I have my own apartment.”
“I know.”
“My own job.”
“I know.”
“My own money now.”
“I know.”
“And if I stay tonight—”
Roman waited.
“It is because I want to.”
His face changed.
“Maeve.”
“What?”
“Stay tonight.”
She smiled.
“That sounded like an order.”
He corrected himself immediately.
“Would you stay tonight?”
“Better.”
“And?”
Maeve looked at Erin.
Her sister deliberately stared at the ceiling.
Declan covered his mouth.
Gabriel pretended to read the cereal box.
Maeve laughed.
“Yes.”
Roman smiled.
Not the cold expression that frightened employees.
Not the face that once watched people break for sport.
Just Roman.
Later that afternoon, Maeve walked past the service entrance where she had first arrived with twelve dollars and wet cardboard inside her boots.
A new maid was coming in for her first shift.
Young.
Nervous.
Maeve opened the door.
The woman glanced toward the grand hallway.
“I heard people don’t last here.”
Maeve smiled.
“That used to be true.”
The woman looked uncertain.
“What changed?”
Maeve thought about breakfast.
A dead woman’s recipe.
A hidden trust.
A fourth chair.
Three men who learned apologies did not buy forgiveness.
A sister who survived.
A house that stopped demanding ghosts.
“People did,” Maeve said.
The new maid stepped inside.
Maeve did not warn her not to make eye contact.
She did not tell her to wait ten minutes after breaking glass.
She handed her a written schedule, a benefits packet, and the number for an independent employee advocate.
Then she said the words nobody had said to Maeve on her first day.
“If something feels wrong, tell me.”
The young woman nodded.
Maeve closed the door against the summer wind.
From the kitchen, Declan shouted that Roman had burned the potatoes.
Maeve sighed.
Some disasters could not be prevented.
She walked back toward the noise.
Toward Erin’s laughter.
Toward Gabriel arguing about coffee.
Toward Roman pretending the potatoes were “darkly caramelized.”
Toward a table with no empty chair.
And for the first time in her life, Maeve did not stay somewhere because she could not afford to leave.
May you like
She stayed because leaving was possible.
And she chose to come back.
