Chapter 10
Adela asked for another assignment.
Not because of Coralie.
Because every guest now recognized her.
The maid whose son exposed the fiancée.
People stared.
Whispered.
Asked questions.
Finnian hated it.
I understood.
“What do you want?”
She looked surprised by the question.
“Kitchen service.”
Less public.
More stable hours.
So she could be home when Finnian returned from school.
Done.
No promotion narrative.
No reward for loyalty.
Just work matching life.
Then she said:
“I need something else.”
I waited.
“When Finnian comes here…”
Her voice tightened.
“Can people stop asking him what he saw?”
I became still.
Who had?
Staff.
Guests who returned.
Two cousins.
One captain jokingly asked whether Finnian had “any more secrets.”
Idiots.
I handled it simply.
No one questioned the child about the engagement.
No jokes about his speech.
No making him mascot of honesty.
He was six.
That was enough.
Finnian’s stutter did not disappear.
Important.
Fear made it worse.
Excitement did too.
Sometimes he spoke smoothly for ten minutes, then struggled on his own name.
Adela worried.
I asked whether he had support.
School therapist.
Good.
Nothing to fix dramatically.
One afternoon I saw him in the garden talking to Rafe.
Finnian stuttered through a long story about dinosaurs.
Rafe waited.
No finishing sentences.
No impatient face.
Simple.
That was what safety looked like.
Not applause after fluent words.
Time during difficult ones.
I started noticing how many adults interrupted each other constantly.
Cassian worst of all.
I told him once.
He stared.
“Are we taking communication advice from a six-year-old now?”
“Yes.”
He sighed.
“Family’s gone soft.”
I smiled.
“Still here, though.”
He had begun visiting occasionally.
Not operationally.
As cousin.
That distinction felt strange.
May you like
Useful.
Maybe relationships could exist without being converted immediately into power.
