"There you are," Melissa said, looking up.
"Yeah."
She glanced toward the clock.
"Why are you late today?"
"I had some last-minute things from school." He placed his bag down near its usual spot. This was true, broadly. He had gone to Maccha Café because the girls had asked him to check it for the class gathering, and there had been conversations about the party, arrangements, things that needed working out. School-related work, in the sense that mattered. He classified it accordingly.
Melissa nodded without pursuing it. "All right."
He looked toward Silas. "Good evening, Father."
"Good evening."
On his way to set the bag down, he passed Nitsi and reached out to pat the top of her head as he went by, because he could, and because she would complain about it.
She did. "Hey." She pushed his hand away. "Don't do that."
"You didn't stop me."
"I did."
"After I finished."
She glared. He gave her a faint smile and put his bag down.
Melissa had been watching them with quiet amusement. Then she remembered something. "Did you have lunch?"
"Yes."
"You didn't take anything with you this morning."
"A friend shared some with me."
She nodded, apparently satisfied, and Tyler didn't elaborate. Eris had paid, and he had eaten with her and Clara. The statement was accurate. He simply hadn't attached everything that surrounded it, and he saw no reason to. A lie was saying something he knew to be false. Choosing not to explain every detail was a different thing entirely, or at least that was how he had always seen it.
"Was it enough?" Melissa asked.
"Yeah."
"What did you eat?"
"Some noodles."
Nitsi looked up from her bag. "Noodles? Were they good?"
"They were fine."
She looked immediately disappointed. "That's all?"
"What do you want me to say?"
"That they were delicious."
"They weren't."
She frowned. Melissa laughed quietly. "You could at least pretend."
Tyler looked at Nitsi. "They were delicious."
Her smile came back at once. "See?"
"Much better."
Melissa picked up the glass that had been sitting near her.
Silas let out a quiet chuckle from the sofa, and Tyler glanced at him. "What?"
"Nothing." He shook his head. "You haven't changed."
Tyler considered it. "I've changed quite a lot, actually."
"Not in the ways that matter."
Tyler didn't answer that. He was thirsty, and he'd noticed it about three minutes ago. "I'll get some water."
"Put this near a sink," Melissa said.
He nodded and walked toward the kitchen. He had almost reached the doorway when she called after him. "Tyler."
He turned. "What?"
"Don't drink too quickly."
"I'm not a child anymore," he said, and continued into the kitchen.
He filled the glass and drank slowly, leaning against the counter and letting the quiet of the kitchen settle around him. The water was cool. For a few seconds his thoughts didn't go anywhere in particular, just drifted across the events of the afternoon, the café, the walk home, Katherine's parting words, the warm, slightly chaotic domesticity he'd walked back into.
Then Melissa's voice reached him from the living room.
"Silas."
"Hm?"
"You were saying something before Tyler came in."
Tyler's hand stopped with the glass still near his mouth.
A pause. Then Silas's voice, unhurried: "Well... after all the requests and protests the employee union made, the governor finally agreed to listen to us."
Tyler lowered the glass by a fraction.
So it had finally happened.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
At least this part of my life was going in the proper direction.
The employee union had been pushing for months.
The government had continued delaying.
But eventually, just as Tyler remembered, the matter had reached the governor.
Tyler took another sip.
"So the governor decided to meet with us," Silas continued. "This Sunday."
Tyler inhaled at exactly the wrong moment. The water went down the wrong way, and he coughed sharply, turning from the doorway and pressing a hand to his mouth.
Everyone in the living room went quiet.
"Drink it slowly," Melissa said, from across the distance, without even needing to look. "You're not a small child anymore."
Nitsi giggled.
Tyler cleared his throat. "Sorry." He took a careful breath and looked down at the glass.
This was not what he had expected.
Silas looked at him with mild concern.
"Are you all right?"
"Yeah."
Tyler took another careful breath.
"I'm fine."
Silas continued before Tyler could ask anything else.
"The employee union decided that we should bring our family members with us."
Melissa looked interested.
"All of us?"
"Yes."
Silas nodded.
"It might make the situation more convincing. If the governor sees how many families are affected, perhaps he'll finally agree to solve the problem."
Melissa nodded.
"That's a good idea."
Silas leaned back.
"That's what everyone thought."
Melissa's expression brightened.
"So when are we leaving?"
Silas glanced toward Nitsi.
"Saturday evening."
"Saturday?"
"Yes. There's a five o'clock train from Midtown Station."
Nitsi immediately looked up.
"Train?"
Silas smiled.
"Yes. We're taking the train."
"How long?"
"About four hours."
Nitsi's eyes widened slightly.
"Four hours?"
"It'll be fine."
"That's a long time."
Melissa smiled.
"You've travelled longer than that before."
"But not on a train."
Silas laughed.
"Then this will be your chance."
Nitsi seemed to consider the idea, then slowly smiled.
"Can I sit by the window?"
"We'll see."
"Uncle."
Nitsi crossed her arms.
Melissa laughed.
Silas continued explaining the arrangements.
"We'll leave Darsen City at five in the evening. The train should reach Gulmerg around nine."
Melissa nodded.
"Gulmerg."
"Yes. We'll stay there overnight."
Tyler remained in the kitchen, listening without turning around.
Gulmerg.
The capital of the western region of Varosia. Most of the regional government offices were there.
"We'll book a hotel near the government district. There's no point travelling back and forth when the meeting is early the next morning."
Melissa agreed.
"That makes sense."
"We'll leave the hotel around ten in the morning."
"Ten?"
Silas nodded.
"The governor's office isn't far from the hotel, We should arrive before the meeting."
Nitsi looked confused.
Silas looked at her.
"That's where we're meeting the governor."
Nitsi's eyes widened.
"Really?"
"Really."
"Are you going to talk to him?"
Silas smiled.
"Yes."
"What will you say?"
Silas paused.
"Probably a lot."
Nitsi giggled.
Melissa smiled at him.
"Just don't let everyone start talking at once."
"I'll try."
"You know they will."
"I know."
Silas looked down at his hands for a moment.
Then his expression became more serious.
"We'll meet him at eleven. The union representatives will explain everything, and we'll have the documents ready. Hopefully, once he sees the situation properly, he'll understand what we're dealing with."
Melissa nodded slowly.
"I hope so."
"So do I."
There was a brief pause.
Nitsi looked at both of them.
"Is the governor scary?"
Silas laughed.
"No."
"Have you met him before?"
"Not personally."
"Oh."
Nitsi seemed slightly disappointed.
Melissa reached over and touched her shoulder.
"You don't have to worry about that. We'll all be together."
Nitsi nodded.
Tyler stood silently in the kitchen, the glass still in his hand.
Melissa looked toward Silas.
"Maybe this really is the beginning of something better."
Silas gave a small smile.
"I hope so."
Nitsi raised both hands again.
"Can we go now?"
Melissa laughed. "It's still a couple of days away."
Nitsi lowered her hands. "Oh."
Silas shook his head. "You'll survive until Saturday."
"Maybe."
"Maybe?"
Nitsi nodded seriously. "Saturday feels very far away."
Melissa laughed again.
Silas looked toward her, then toward the kitchen.
"Tyler?"
Tyler finally turned slightly.
He had been listening the entire time.
"Yes?"
Silas smiled.
"You heard all that?"
Tyler looked at the glass in his hand.
"Most of it."
Melissa looked at him.
"Why are you standing there?"
Tyler stepped out from the kitchen doorway.
He looked toward Silas.
"You said the meeting is this Sunday?"
"Yes."
Tyler stared at him for a moment.
Then he asked the question that had been forming in his mind since the moment he heard the date.
"You mean next Sunday, right?"
"No." Silas didn't hesitate. "This Sunday."
There was a short pause. "Are you sure?"
"Yes. It's this Sunday."
Tyler's expression remained controlled. Nothing on his face moved. But inside, his thoughts had come to a kind of halt, the way water stops moving when a door drops shut above a channel.
Melissa looked between them, mildly curious. "Do you have plans this Sunday?"
"Not particularly," Tyler said. He returned to the living room and settled into his usual place, listening while the conversation moved around him, Nitsi still asking questions about the trip, Melissa looking upward for a brief moment and offering a quiet thank-you to Ignaros.
He said nothing.
The result was exactly what he wanted. The governor had agreed to listen, the family would be brought along to make the case, and this was precisely the path that led to Silas's situation being resolved. That part was right.
The problem was the timing.
One week earlier than he remembered.
Seven days.
He went through it carefully, running back through everything that had happened over the past months, every conversation, every small decision, every moment where he had done something differently than his previous life. The employee union had still organized. The government situation had still developed along the same lines. The governor had still agreed to meet them. Nothing about the destination seemed wrong.
Only the road had moved.
And that, somehow, was worse than if something had gone entirely off course. If an event had disappeared, he could search for the missing piece. If the outcome had changed, he could trace it back to a cause. But this? Everything was happening correctly. The same result, approaching from a slightly different angle, one week earlier than it was supposed to.
Tyler looked at Nitsi, still excited about the trip, and at Melissa asking Silas about the arrangements, and at Silas answering her with more ease than he had managed in months, and for a moment he simply let the scene exist without pulling it apart.
Then his eyes dropped to the glass still in his hand.
Something had moved. Something he couldn't see the source of, which meant he had missed something, or done something, or said something at some point along the way that had shifted the timing without his noticing. A different conversation. A different decision. A different person, somewhere, who had acted slightly earlier than they were supposed to, because of something Tyler had done.
He turned the problem over, looking for any seam he could find, and came up empty.
Almost under his breath, he asked himself the only question left.
"Just where did I go wrong?"