In the morning, the letter was still there.
William could feel it even when his back was to it, like a magnet behind the cheap wood of the cabinet.
Albert shuffled into the kitchen in socks and an old T-shirt, hair sticking up in a way that made him look less like a dad and more like someone's worn-out older brother.
"Cereal?" he asked, reaching for the box.
William's hand shot out. "Wait—"
Too late.
The envelope slid out and landed on the table, flap already torn.
Albert froze.
For a few seconds, the only sound was the ticking of the wall clock and the distant rush of traffic from the freeway.
"You read it?" Albert asked quietly.
William stared at his bowl. "It had my name in it," he said.
Fair point.
Albert picked up the letter. The paper was soft where it had been handled too much.
He skimmed it, jaw tightening, shoulders climbing toward his ears. By the time he reached the last line, his knuckles had gone white.
"Okay," he said finally. "Well. That's… my mother."
He folded the letter, smaller and smaller, until it was a neat square.
He didn't throw it away.
He just put it in his pocket.
Dinner that night was quieter than usual.
Melissa had reheated the soup and added a handful of chopped tomatoes a neighbor had dropped off. The kids stirred their bowls like they were scrying for answers.
"So," she said, trying for normal. "How was school today?"
"People asked questions," Maya said. "About… why we all look different."
"What did you tell them?" Albert asked, wary.
"That this is just how our family looks," she said.
A corner of his mouth twitched.
William pushed noodles around. His spoon made small circles, like he was winding up for something.
"Dad," he blurted at last. "Your parents wrote you."
Melissa froze.
"Oh?" Albert said, as if he'd forgotten. "Yeah. They write a lot. Mostly about church bake sales and their neighbor's dog."
"They said more than that," William said.
He looked up, eyes shining too bright.
"They said if you want me to be stable, you should go back. Alone." The word fell out like a stone. "They said… this situation sounds wrong."
Maya's hand tightened on her spoon.
"They said…" William swallowed. "They said Mom and Maya aren't your family."
The room went very, very still.
Melissa's face had gone blank in the way people's did sometimes in the ER just before they fell apart.
Maya's chair scraped as she shrank into herself. "They mean me," she said quietly.
"No," Melissa said at once. "They don't know you. They don't get to mean you."
Albert set his spoon down with exaggerated care.
"My parents," he said slowly, "have lived in the same town their whole lives. They married at twenty-two, had kids at twenty-four, never missed a mortgage payment. To them, 'stable' means… looks like everyone around you."
He swallowed. "We don't look like everyone around them."
"We don't look like everyone around here, either," William muttered.
"True," Albert said. "Still doesn't make us less real."
Melissa let out a breath that shook a little. "I can live with them not approving of me," she said. "I've been someone's disappointment my whole life. But I won't have them talk like Maya is… optional."
Maya's eyes welled up.
"I belong to Mom," she said. "And…" She glanced at Albert, uncertainty flickering. "And to here."
Her voice was so small on the last word that something in Albert's chest hurt.
"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, you do."
He looked at William.
"And you," he said, "are not a suitcase I pick up and put down wherever someone else thinks you fit."
William's jaw worked.
"If you go back without us," he said, "I'm not going."
Silence again. Heavy, but different this time.
Not a silence of fear.
A silence of lines being drawn.
Melissa stood, went to the fridge, and grabbed a fresh sticky note.
"New house rule," she said.
She wrote in shaky capital letters and slapped it onto the door.
RULE #4:
IF WE EVER LEAVE, WE SAY GOODBYE AT THE SAME TABLE.
NO GHOSTING. NO VANISHING.
"That's… oddly specific," Albert said.
"Maybe," she said. "But I'm done living in houses where people disappear without explanation."
She met his eyes.
"I'm not asking for forever. I'm asking for no disappearing acts."
He thought about the letter in his pocket. His parents' house, safe and small and suffocating. The volunteer rebuilding program he'd applied for, on a whim, before the fire. The voicemail he hadn't told them about yet.
As if summoned by the thought, his phone buzzed on the table.
He flipped it over.
New voicemail: REBUILD OFFICE.
He hit play.
"Mr. Jones, this is the Sierra Glen Rebuild Initiative," a brisk voice said. "Your application for our volunteer construction team has been accepted. We provide housing for volunteers on-site, but unfortunately we can't accommodate families. Please let us know if you're able to commit to the full program."
The message ended.
Nobody said anything.
The kids were staring at him. Melissa, too.
On the table between them, Maya's drawing lay half-finished. Four stick figures holding hands under a crooked roof. Above them, in wobbly letters, she'd written:
AFTER THE FIRE, WE STAYED.
Albert tapped the edge of the drawing.
"Apparently," he said quietly, "I have to choose what I'm rebuilding first."
No one rushed to reassure him.
They just sat there, in a room that still smelled faintly of smoke and soup and new carpet glue, four people who were supposed to be temporary.
The clock on the wall ticked.
Outside, somewhere, hammers were already pounding nails into fresh lumber.
Inside, something even more fragile was being nailed together without blueprints.
And for the first time, Albert wondered if he was brave enough to build the kind of home you couldn't walk away from without breaking.