Dylan leaned against the back of the dining room chair, relaxing a little for the first time since they’d all arrived a couple of hours ago. Mom and the girls still had Sara in the living room, but it looked like maybe Sara was starting to let go of her tension some, too. Every now and then I heard her laugh—hers was lower and richer than theirs, a lot like her voice. I knew this was still about a million miles outside of how she’d prefer to be spending her day, but she wasn’t fighting it. She wasn’t trying to run away from it. That gave me a little hope. My conversation with Dylan was giving me hope, too. He had a job as a junior broker with a big investment firm in Winnipeg, but he was also in graduate school part time, working on a Masters of Finance. He wanted to move up within the company and become a financial analyst. He wanted to be able to provide well for his family. And he wanted Chloe to be his family. He’d made that part abundantly clear. I grunted, letting his statement sink in.
