Chapter
Thirty-Three
KEANE
The movies make it look quick—like you walk into court, deliver a closing speech, and justice comes down in a single gavel strike.
Real life is slower. Messier. Less poetry, more paperwork.
Hearings bleed into filings. Subpoenas turn into stacks of bank records so dry they could suffocate a man if he tried to read them straight through. Loan applications pile up, ugly in their familiarity—Oren’s name scrawled where his hand never touched, signatures forged with the kind of arrogance that assumed no one would ever look twice. The pattern becomes obvious: cash funneled into Vince’s accounts, benefits claimed in his name, receipts that speak louder than any tearful confession.
The DA files charges. The civil suit moves forward in tandem. Judges don’t raise voices; clerks don’t pound gavels. Justice, it turns out, is a series of quiet affirmations—motions granted, objections noted, and deadlines set and met.
Through it all, Oren shows up. He sits in hearing rooms with his notebook and his Quackers pin clipped to his bag strap like a shield. He listens to lawyers drone and accountants testify, and sometimes he leans so close to me I can feel the tremor in his leg beneath the table.
One morning, before we walk into the courthouse, he lingers outside on the steps. His hands jammed deep in his pockets, shoulders curled in. His voice comes out small, a crack between bravado and truth.
“I don’t want to see him. Not in person. I’m scared if I do, it’ll feel like before. Like he still—” He stops, teeth pressing into his lower lip. “Like he still gets to own the story.”
I turn to him, set a hand over his wrist until he looks at me.
“You won’t be standing alone. Not now, not ever.”
His breath hitches. He nods, then lets me guide him through the doors.
Inside, the grind continues—black-and-white exhibits, the drone of testimony, the careful march of a system that doesn’t move fast but does, eventually, move forward.
And at every table, every bench, every filing deadline met, Oren is there. Scared, yes—but also showing up, step by step, until the story belongs to him again.
The stackof papers lands on my desk with a softthunk. Official. Unambiguous. Vince Marlowe owes. Every penny, every misappropriated loan, every stolen cent must be returned.
Oren stares at the first check, eyes wide as if the numbers might dissolve before him. I watch him inhale, a little laugh caught between disbelief and relief.
“It’s… it’s real?” he whispers.
I nod, hand finding his. “It’s real. Every single cent. And your record stays clean. All of it—gone.”
He lets out a breath that’s part laugh, part sob, and the weight of weeks of fear and anxiety leaves a visible imprint on his shoulders. He looks at me then, that boyish grin stretchingacross his face, the one that made me want to pull him into my home, my life, from the very beginning.
“We can—” I start, voice measured, careful, the lawyer speaking instead of the Daddy. “You could look for a place. A house. Big backyard—room for Quackers and the crew. A pool. Space for you, your friends, and… all your projects.”
He searches my eyes, hesitates, then asks the question I’ve imagined a thousand times, never daring to hope he would say it aloud.
“Will you be there?”
“Of course,” I answer without pause. “Always.”
His lower lip trembles, his hand sliding over mine, thumb tracing knuckles.
“Not to visit,” he murmurs. “To live there.”
I blink. “You mean… move in?”
He nods, small and sure. “In my happily ever after,” he whispers. “There’s always a Daddy in the story. And now that Daddy has a face.”
His hand cups my cheek, forehead pressed to mine.
“It’s yours, Daddy. I want you in whatever version of my future I get to live out.”
I close the distance, pressing a kiss to his palm, the warmth of his fingers lingering on my face.
“If that’s what you want,” I say, voice binding as any contract I’ve ever filed, “then it’s ours.”
He smiles, trusting, hopeful. Outside, the world keeps moving. Vince’s name fades. Inside, we start looking at house listings—backyards wide enough for lanterns, pools with shallow edges, spare rooms for glitter-laden crafts, and spaces where Little friends and big Little hearts can flourish.
Oren leans into my chest, whispering a small, “Thank you.”
It’s not the end or the final chapter. But it’s the start of the insulated, imperfect, messy life he imagined on the pages of his journal—now with a man who will hold the pen beside him.
