“Missy is asserting dominance.”

She hadn’t closed her door all the way. A sliver of light—her bedside lamp, the one shaped like a horse she’d had since she was five—spilled out. Sheldon rarely initiated contact. Contact meant variables. Variables meant chaos.

Sheldon woke up on the living room couch, still wearing the tiara. The morning light was gray and soft, the kind that precedes a Texas summer scorcher. Mary was already up, reading her Bible by the window.

From the living room came the muffled sound of George Sr. and Mary talking. Not arguing. Just… talking. The kind of tired, low-volume talking adults do when the kids are supposed to be asleep.

He sat on the edge of his unfamiliar bed—no divot from years of his body weight, no faint smell of his own sweat and library books. His Meemaw’s quilt, the one with the crooked stitches, lay folded at the foot. He didn’t unfold it. Not yet.

She smiled. It was the real laugh smile. The nickel’s echo.

And yet.