The police cruiser’s lights exploded in the rearview mirror like red and blue fireworks, scattering across the black hood of the Porsche as it flew down the Los Angeles freeway. The city lights streaked by in long white lines, and the engine roared so loud it felt like the car itself was yelling at fate to move out of the way.

“Punch it!” Dimitri shouted from the passenger seat, his hands gripping the sides of his wheelchair restraints, eyes lit with a wild mix of fear and joy. “Come on, Andre, is this all you got?”

Andre’s heart pounded. The speedometer climbed past the limit, past common sense, into the zone where one bad move could change everything. The night air rushed in through the cracked windows, cold and electric against his face.

“If I go any faster, we’re definitely getting a ticket,” Andre yelled, but his foot pressed a little harder on the gas anyway.

“I don’t care!” Dimitri laughed, the sound raw and free, like it hadn’t escaped his chest in years. “I forgot what this feels like. The adrenaline. I want to live.”

The siren behind them wailed louder, closing in. Andre’s stomach dropped.

“Okay, okay, maybe we don’t want to die for it either,” he muttered, easing off the gas just as the police cruiser swerved into the lane beside them, signaling for him to pull over.

“Gentlemen,” the officer said a moment later, leaning down toward the open window, his face framed by the flashing lights, “you’re driving pretty fast tonight.”

“Officer,” Andre blurted, pointing at Dimitri, “my friend—he can’t feel his legs. He’s having a lot of pain, we think something’s wrong. I was going to take him to the hospital. I have a wheelchair in the back, I’ve got all his stuff. I know I was speeding, but—”

The officer’s eyes softened as he glanced at Dimitri, who was pale now, beads of sweat collecting at his temple. The thrill was fading; the pain was returning.

“Please,” Andre said. “Just let me get him there. I’ll pay the ticket. Whatever you want. Just… help us.”

The officer exhaled, making a quick decision.

“I’ll do you one better,” he said. “Stay behind me. I’ll give you an escort.”

The cruiser pulled out first, siren bursting back to life. Andre followed, hands tight on the wheel as they sliced through traffic like an emergency convoy. Dimitri closed his eyes, the flashing lights reflecting faintly off his face. Andre risked a glance at him.

“Everything’s going to be fine,” he said, more to himself than to the man beside him. “We’re going to get there, okay? Just stay calm. We’re not done yet, old man. Not even close.”

He believed that now.

He didn’t, when all of this started.

Back then, he didn’t believe in much of anything at all.

The first time Andre stepped into the Turner home, he didn’t see a future. He saw a problem.

It was a clean, expensive problem, sure—a mansion sitting comfortably in a quiet California neighborhood, its front lawn trimmed at a perfect right angle, its porch lined with tasteful lights instead of peeling paint. It looked like a house you’d see in a Thanksgiving commercial, the kind where everyone hugged in slow motion while turkey steam drifted into the air.

He wasn’t there to stay.

He just needed a signature.

“Come in,” the woman said, opening the front door with a tight, controlled smile that said she had already decided who he was. “And wipe your feet, please.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Andre muttered, dragging his worn sneakers against the mat. His hoodie hung loose on his shoulders, his jeans faded at the knees. He knew he didn’t look like someone interviewing for a high-paying job. He looked like what people expected him to be: trouble.

“Look,” he said as soon as they stepped inside, “I just want my unemployment papers signed. That’s all. Then I’ll go, and we can both get on with our day.”

The woman—Ruth, as he later learned—took a long breath, as if she were counting silently before she answered.

“You’ll speak with Mr. Turner,” she said. “He will decide whether to sign or not.”

“If we could just cut out the middle part,” Andre said, holding up the form, “you and I both know I’m not getting this job. I’m just trying to save everybody some time, that’s all. You sign this, the government sees I applied, I get my unemployment, and boom. We’re done. Easy.”

Her eyes hardened. “How about I call security instead?” she said. “Does that sound easy?”

Andre shut his mouth. His pride wanted to fire back, but his reality wouldn’t let him. He needed that signature.

“Please go wait with the other candidates,” she added, gesturing toward the hallway. “You’ll be called in when it’s your turn.”

He sighed and moved down the hall, passing a row of polished shoes and stiff suits sitting on a bench. They eyed him like he’d wandered into the wrong movie. Maybe he had.

One by one the candidates went in and came out—some smooth, some sweating, some stiff with forced confidence. Andre sat there with his form folded carefully in his hoodie pocket, thinking of his mother working late, of his little brother Marcus running the streets like he used to, of the rent notice on the kitchen table.

Finally, Ruth reappeared.

“That will be all,” she said to the man leaving the room behind her. “Thank you for your time.”

The man shook hands, smiled, and left.

“I thought he was a good candidate,” one of the staff murmured quietly.

“I’m more curious about the other one,” someone else replied. “At least he’s… different.”

“Andre,” Ruth called. “Mr. Turner will see you now.”

He stood, rolled his shoulders, and walked in.

The room looked like something out of a magazine. Floor-to-ceiling windows. Bookshelves lined with hardcovers. A large, polished desk. And behind it, in a sleek wheelchair with chrome rims and black leather, sat Dimitri Turner.

He was older than Andre by a couple of decades, with silver at his temples and sharp blue eyes that missed nothing. He held an hourglass in one hand, the sand slowly slipping from the top bulb to the bottom.

“So,” Dimitri said, setting the glass down gently. “You’re the man who wanted to skip the interview.”

“Sir, with all due respect,” Andre said, pulling the paper from his pocket, “we both know I’m not getting this job. I just need proof that I applied so I can get my unemployment benefits. I’m not trying to waste your time.”

“Sit,” Dimitri said, ignoring the paper, gesturing to the chair across from him.

Andre hesitated, then dropped into the seat, the cushion swallowing him more than he liked.

“Do you even know what job you applied for?” Dimitri asked.

“No, sir,” Andre admitted honestly. “Like I said, I just—”

“Caretaker,” Dimitri said. “You’d be mine. You’d live here. You’d feed me, carry me, help me dress, change me, bathe me. You’d be the first person I see in the morning and the last person I see at night. In a sense…” He nodded toward the window, toward the sprawling yard and the glint of the sports car beneath the shade. “All of this would be yours to manage. Does that sound like something you want?”

Andre stared, thrown.

Wait. Change him?

“You mean like…” Andre lifted his hands, unable to even say the words out loud. “Clean you? Really?”

Dimitri’s mouth curled in amusement. “Yes. Really.”

“Nope,” Andre said immediately, pushing himself halfway out of the chair. “No, sir. I’m sorry, this place is amazing, it really is. But I’m not trying to be out here changing a grown man. I can’t do that. I’ll go. Just—please, if you could just sign the paper—”

“The job pays over a hundred thousand dollars a year,” Dimitri said calmly.

Andre sat back down so fast the chair squeaked.

“You know,” he said after a moment, clearing his throat, “I really feel like you should lead with that information.”

Dimitri laughed, and it wasn’t a polite, forced laugh either. It was real.

“Still,” Andre muttered, looking away. “I don’t know if I can do all that.”

“People change for the chance to change their lives,” Dimitri said. “Ruth told me you’ve been in trouble. That you’ve been in prison. Is that true?”

Andre stiffened. “Yeah,” he admitted. “I did some things I’m not proud of. Sold things I shouldn’t. Got myself locked up. I got out, and now I’m trying not to end up back in a cell or in a box.”

“Why?” Dimitri asked.

“What do you mean, why?” Andre said, thrown. “Because I got a family. A little brother watching everything I do. A mom breaking her back at a minimum-wage job because I wasn’t there to help. Because I’m tired of ruining everything. That enough reasons for you?”

Dimitri nodded slowly, considering him.

“I’ll hire you,” he said at last. “On one condition.”

Andre watched him warily. “What?”

“You try,” Dimitri said simply. “For one month. You give this an honest effort. You live here. You do the work. If at the end of the month you still want to leave, I’ll sign your papers myself. And I’ll give you a reference. You’ll have more than you came here for.”

Andre looked at the polished floor, the wheelchair, the big windows, the life on the other side of the glass that felt so far away from the one he knew.

“One month?” he repeated.

“One month,” Dimitri confirmed.

“Can I… see the room?” Andre asked finally.

Ruth showed it to him. A guest room bigger than his mom’s entire living room. King-sized bed. Private bathroom. A closet that didn’t just echo when you opened it. It was the nicest place Andre had ever stood in without worrying about who might throw him out.

“This will be yours,” she said.

“You serious?” he breathed. “This is just… for me?”

“For as long as you work here,” she replied.

He walked to the window and looked out at the pool, the back patio, the city in the distance. It felt fake, like a movie set. But the bed was real when he sat on it. The weight of what Dimitri had offered was real, too.

“Okay,” Andre said, more to the room than to her. “Okay. I’ll try.”

The first week nearly broke him.

He hadn’t really understood what “caretaker” meant until the first time Dimitri rang the bell beside his bed at three in the morning. Until the first time he lifted the man’s full weight awkwardly from chair to bed, his muscles shaking. Until he had to swallow his pride and his discomfort and learn to help another man with the most personal parts of being alive.

He messed up. A lot.

He spilled a drink in Dimitri’s lap once and nearly quit from embarrassment alone. He dropped a spoon and stepped on it. He forgot which medication bottle came at which time. Ruth hovered, watching, correcting him, her patience thin but her standards sharp.

“You can’t just be strong,” she told him. “You have to be careful. You don’t get to make careless mistakes with someone else’s body.”

“Yeah, yeah,” he muttered. “I got it.”

But he didn’t—not at first.

And yet, something about the routine started to settle into him. The mornings, helping Dimitri wash and dress. The afternoons, wheeling him through the hallways, reading his mail aloud. The evenings, doing physical therapy, stretching limbs that no longer remembered how to move on their own.

It wasn’t glamorous. But it was real.

“Look at this,” Andre said one afternoon, flipping through a stack of envelopes at Dimitri’s desk. “You got a Thanksgiving card.”

“Throw that out,” Dimitri said quietly.

Andre glanced up. “You don’t like Thanksgiving?”

“I used to,” Dimitri replied. “It was my favorite holiday. Not anymore.”

He didn’t explain right away. That came later.

Another envelope caught Andre’s eye. “Whoa,” he said. “Who’s Alicia… Villa?” He struggled over the last name.

“Don’t open that,” Ruth snapped quickly from the doorway.

Andre jumped. “Relax, I was just reading—”

“Don’t open anything from that address,” she said again, softer. “Do you understand?”

Andre held up one hand. “Yes, ma’am. Loud and clear.”

But the name stuck in his mind.

Later that night, after Dimitri had dozed off to the sound of his vinyl jazz records, Ruth finally explained. Not everything. But enough.

“She’s been writing to him,” Ruth said, sitting in the dim light of the kitchen, hands wrapped around her mug. “A pen pal. They’ve never met. Never spoken on the phone. But he’s… fallen for her. Hard.”

“And she’s real?” Andre asked, squinting. “Not some scam from the internet?”

“She’s real,” Ruth said. “I started answering her letters for him when his hands got too weak to write. He dictated. I wrote.” She looked away. “Eventually… he stopped dictating. I kept writing anyway. It made him happy to get replies. So I made sure he did.”

Andre stared. “You mean you’ve been writing back as him.”

“Yes.”

“That’s wild,” Andre said. “He doesn’t know?”

“No,” she said. “And he doesn’t need to. As far as he’s concerned, someone out there sees him as more than his chair. That matters.”

Andre thought of the way Dimitri’s face softened when he heard her name. The way he glanced at the clock, counting days between letters.

“You know this only works for so long,” Andre said gently. “Eventually he’s going to want more.”

“I know,” Ruth said. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Weeks passed. Andre adjusted.

He learned how to lift Dimitri without hurting him. He learned how he liked his coffee—two creams, two sugars, exactly. He learned that Dimitri had an almost ridiculous collection of jazz records and a secret love for reality TV. He learned that money didn’t protect you from regret or loneliness, not really.

They had their first real argument the day Ruth confronted Dimitri with the results of her “research.”

“He’s been in prison,” she said, standing stiffly in the doorway to the study. “You asked me to look him up. I did. He has a record. He’s done time.”

“And?” Dimitri asked, not looking up from the chessboard he and Andre were hunched over.

“‘And’?” she repeated, stunned. “That’s all you have to say? He’s a criminal.”

“Was,” Andre muttered under his breath.

“People change,” Dimitri said.

“Not always,” Ruth fired back. “I found this in his room.”

She held up a small object, and Andre’s stomach dropped. The hourglass.

“I was going to bring it back,” he said quickly, standing up. “I just—borrowed it. For inspiration.”

“Inspiration?” Ruth demanded. “It was a gift from his wife.”

Dimitri finally looked up.

“I like him,” he said calmly. “He’s the first person who neither pities me nor worships me. He treats me like a person, not a paycheck or a project. If you don’t mind, I’d like to enjoy that while I still can. Please take me to my room, Ruth.”

Her shoulders sagged as she wheeled him away, the hourglass gripped tightly in her hand. Before they left, she paused beside Andre.

“You’ve already won him over,” she said quietly. “You’re in his heart now. Please… don’t hurt him.”

The words sat with him long after the door closed.

One afternoon, while sorting mail again, Andre found an invitation.

“Yo,” he said, walking into the study. “You’ve been invited to an art exhibit at a museum downtown.”

“I haven’t been to a museum in ages,” Dimitri said, eyes lighting up. “When is it?”

“Tonight,” Andre said. “In like an hour. Man, you really need to start checking your mail on time.”

“Actually,” Dimitri said, grinning slyly, “you need to be better about checking my mail on time.”

Andre laughed. “You want to go?”

“Absolutely,” Dimitri said.

Ruth protested. “You can’t go looking like that,” she said to Andre, eyeing his hoodie and sneakers. “And it might be dangerous. The museum will be crowded.”

“We’ll take the van,” she suggested.

“The van?” Dimitri said, affronted. “No. We’ll take the Porsche. It’ll be fun. In style.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Ruth said.

“Come on,” Dimitri said. “From what Andre tells me, this isn’t even in the top ten of the craziest things I’ve done.”

Andre grinned. “That’s what I’m talking about.”

The museum glowed under spotlights, all glass and stone and polished floors. Inside, people drifted through the galleries in neat blazers and glittering jewelry, wine glasses in hand, murmuring words like “texture” and “movement” and “depth.”

Dimitri’s wheelchair moved smoothly as Andre pushed him through the exhibit halls. Their stares followed them, polite and quick. Andre got used to pretending not to notice.

“That one,” Dimitri said, stopping in front of a large painting. “What do you think?”

The piece was all warm tones—amber, gold, burnt orange. A woman at a table. A bowl. A vase. Shapes stacked and bent in that way that looked simple until you tried to copy it.

A woman in a fitted black dress approached them. “It’s mesmerizing, isn’t it?” she said. “The artist’s description says he was divinely inspired. A holy original. Straight from his mind.”

“How much?” Dimitri asked.

“We’ve already had an offer for sixty-two thousand dollars,” she replied smoothly. “It’s by Sebastian Vatif. One-of-a-kind.”

“So?” Dimitri said. “Worth it?”

The woman smiled. “Absolutely.”

Andre looked closer. Something about it tugged at him.

“Absolutely not,” he said.

The woman’s smile faltered. “Excuse me?”

“This is just a cheap imitation of Picasso’s blue period,” Andre said, surprising even himself as the words rolled out. “Only thing is, he swapped the blue for amber. The bread, the bowl, the vase, the woman—they’re all arranged almost exactly like one of Picasso’s early pieces. Even the way the shadows fall.”

The woman drew herself up. “And you are…?”

“Somebody who used to paint,” Andre said quietly. “And somebody who paid attention in art class. Look, it’s nice. I’m not saying it’s bad. But calling it divinely inspired like he just pulled it out of the sky? That’s a bit much, don’t you think?

Even Picasso said he got inspired by Matisse. Artists borrow. They all do. Only difference is whether they admit it.”

Dimitri chuckled, watching the woman’s face.

“What I can gather,” she said coolly after a moment, “is that you know next to nothing about art.”

Andre shrugged. “Maybe. Maybe that’s why I see it clearly.”

She excused herself soon after. Dimitri was still smiling.

“I’d like to see some of your work,” he said.

“Probably decomposing in a junkyard somewhere,” Andre said. “My mom threw most of it away after I got locked up. Said she couldn’t look at it without wondering what went wrong.”

“Then maybe,” Dimitri said, “it’s time you make something new.”

That night, after everyone else had gone to bed, Andre stood in the empty guesthouse behind the main house, staring at the blank canvas Dimitri had had delivered that afternoon.

“Follow your passions,” the note attached to it had said. “If it were pottery, I’d feel silly. But I think it’s paint.”

The first brushstroke felt like breaking out of a cage he didn’t know he was still in.

He painted until dawn.

The month passed.

By the time thirty days had rolled over, Andre had lifted Dimitri a hundred times, laughed with him a hundred more, and had maybe a thousand silent moments where something inside him shifted, aligning with a life he’d never imagined.

On the last day of his trial period, Dimitri called him into the study.

“Congratulations,” he said. “It’s official. Your one-month trial is over.”

Andre nodded, hands in his pockets. “So,” he said lightly, “is this where you tell me you’re tired of me and sign my unemployment papers?”

Dimitri smiled. “No,” he said. “This is where I tell you I would love for you to stay.”

Andre’s chest tightened.

“But,” Dimitri added, “I have one condition.”

“Always with the conditions,” Andre muttered. “What is it this time?”

“I want my hourglass back,” Dimitri said softly.

Andre froze. “I… I’m sorry,” he said. “I feel terrible. I don’t even know why you’re giving me a chance after that. It was wrong. I shouldn’t have touched it.”

“It was a present from my wife,” Dimitri said. “After we found out she had terminal cancer. She gave it to me to remind me to savor every moment we had left.”

“I’m so sorry,” Andre said, words cracking. “I didn’t know.”

“She taught me a lot,” Dimitri went on. “Including not to judge people based on their past, but their potential. I believe you have a lot of that.”

“You don’t even really know me,” Andre said. “Not all of it. The stuff I’ve done…”

“I know enough,” Dimitri said. “I know what you’ve done here. With me. That counts.”

“I’ll bring it back,” Andre said. “Every scratch, every grain of sand.”

“Good,” Dimitri said. “Because I haven’t finished using it yet.”

Andre’s past didn’t stay in the past.

One evening, while dropping off money to help his mother with the bills, he found his little brother Marcus on a street corner, anger curled around him like armor.

“What’s going on?” Andre asked, stepping between Marcus and the man he was shouting at.

“This kid’s been selling on my block,” the other man said. “My territory. I’m just giving him a little reminder of the rules.”

“Let me talk to him,” Andre said. “Please. Just give me that much.”

The man eyed him. “You out of the game?” he asked.

“Yeah,” Andre said. “For real this time.”

“Good,” the man said. “Stay out. Things are changing. I don’t want to see you get hurt. But if I see him out here again, there won’t be any talks. You understand?”

“I got it,” Andre said grimly.

When they were alone, Marcus shoved him.

“Oh, so now you want to be my big brother?” he yelled. “Now you want to tell me what to do? After being gone all this time? You never helped me with homework, you never picked me up from school, you missed every Thanksgiving. You were just… gone.”

“I know,” Andre said quietly. “You want some free advice? Don’t make the same mistakes I did. I thought I was providing. Thought I was doing what I had to do. All I did was make things worse.”

Marcus scoffed, but his eyes weren’t as hard as his tone. “You don’t get to tell me what to do.”

“I’m not trying to control you,” Andre said. “I’m trying to give you what nobody gave me. A warning. This isn’t a game. You want to be like me? Then you better be ready to lose everything that matters.”

He went home that night more determined than ever to make this job work. Not just for himself. For Marcus. For his mom.

Somewhere amid all of that, Alicia wrote back.

“Dimitri,” Ruth said one afternoon, unable to hide her smile as she wheeled him into the living room. “She responded.”

His eyes widened. “And?”

“And,” she said, “she wants to meet. In person. For dinner. Tonight.”

He held his breath. “Tonight,” he repeated. “What should I wear?”

Andre grinned. “This is the part where we turn that closet upside down.”

They picked a dark suit, a crisp shirt. Ruth adjusted his tie carefully. Andre fixed his hair, slicking it back the way Dimitri liked. For the first time in a long time, Dimitri looked like he felt – hopeful.

“On one condition,” Andre said. “You send her a photo. For real. No more hiding.”

Ruth hesitated.

“You both understand why I’m nervous,” Dimitri said quietly. “What if… what if she sees the chair and changes her mind?”

“Then she doesn’t deserve you,” Andre said. “Simple as that.”

“Easy for you to say,” Dimitri muttered.

“In the end,” Andre said, “you don’t want someone who loves the idea of you. You want someone who loves you.”

Ruth finally nodded. “We’ll send it,” she said.

They agreed to keep it “old-fashioned” for the date—no phones, no texts. Just a time, a place, and faith.

Andre wheeled Dimitri into the restaurant that night, the soft glimmer of candles reflecting off the cutlery. They chose a table near the window.

8:00.

8:10.

8:30.

The minutes stretched. The empty chair across from Dimitri stared back at him like a question mark.

“Maybe she’s stuck in traffic,” Andre said. “This is LA. People live in traffic.”

“I don’t think she’s coming,” Dimitri said softly, his voice flattened. “Let’s go.”

“Hey—”

“Please,” he said. “Just take me home.”

The ride back was silent.

“You want to put on a record?” Andre asked carefully.

“No,” Dimitri said. “I just want to lay in bed. Alone.”

“Do you still want the Thanksgiving decorations up?” Ruth asked softly from the doorway.

“Take them down,” he said. “All of them. I don’t want any reminders.”

He turned away. The door clicked shut.

Later that night, Ruth found Andre in the hallway.

“He thinks you sent the photo,” she said quietly. “He thinks that’s why she didn’t show.”

Andre exhaled hard. “You didn’t?”

“I lost my nerve,” she admitted. “I never sent it.”

“So she stood him up without even seeing him?”

Ruth shook her head. “No. That’s the thing. I don’t think she stood him up at all.”

The knock came the next evening.

Andre opened the front door, ready to send away a salesperson or a delivery driver.

Instead, a woman stood there—dark hair pinned up, nervous eyes, carefully pressed dress.

“Hi,” she said. “I’m… I’m Alicia.”

He stared. “From the letters?”

She nodded. “My ride was late last night. I didn’t have your number. I went to the restaurant anyway, waited until they closed. I didn’t want to give up, but eventually… I had to go. I came back tonight, hoping someone could tell me if he was okay. Then I ran into Andre at the restaurant, and he brought me here.”

“Oh, I definitely am coming in now,” Andre said, grinning as he ushered her inside. “Wait here. Don’t move.”

He knocked on Dimitri’s door.

“I told you, Andre,” came the tired voice from inside. “I just want to be alone.”

“It’s not me,” Andre said. “Well, it is. But I brought someone.”

Slowly, the door opened.

Alicia stepped into view.

“I’m so sorry,” she said immediately. “The ride share never came, and I had no way to call you. I waited at the restaurant until they basically kicked me out. I was so scared you would think I didn’t care.”

Dimitri stared, stricken. “You… came.”

“I did,” she said. “And I’m glad I finally made it. Because I need you to know something. Knowing that you’re paralyzed doesn’t change how I feel.”

He blinked, stunned. “You… you know?”

She nodded. “Ruth showed me your picture today. The man in the letters—that’s the man I fell in love with. Not the one with working legs, or a fast car, or a big house. The one with the heart.”

His eyes filled. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to say anything,” she said, reaching for his hand. “Just… let me stay.”

The changes came quickly after that.

The painting Andre had done in the guesthouse, the one he’d never intended anyone to see, ended up in front of one of Dimitri’s friends—a collector who had stopped by for coffee and noticed it leaning against the wall.

“This is incredible,” the man said. “How much are you selling it for?”

“I’m not,” Andre said, alarmed.

“You are now,” Dimitri said. He smiled at Andre. “You said I could show it to a few people. I did. He wants it.”

An hour later, the deal was done.

“Fifty thousand,” Dimitri said, handing Andre an envelope. “From a customer. For your work. Not charity. Not pity. Just talent.”

Andre opened it, eyes going wide.

“No way,” he whispered. “This can’t be real.”

“It is,” Dimitri said. “Now do something good with it.”

“So,” Andre said, “does this mean you believe in me?”

“I’ll believe in you after I see your second painting,” Ruth said from the doorway, though her smile gave her away.

It was the closest she’d come to saying she was proud of him.

A few days later, Dimitri called Andre into the living room one last time.

“I have some news,” he said.

Andre’s stomach clenched. “That sounds like the beginning of a bad speech.”

“I’m firing you,” Dimitri said.

“What?” Andre stared. “What did I do? I can fix it, I promise. I know I messed up sometimes, but—”

“Not because you did anything wrong,” Dimitri cut in. “To the contrary. You’ve done everything right. That’s why you can’t stay.”

Andre blinked. “That makes zero sense.”

“You need to be home,” Dimitri said gently. “Taking care of your own family. Your mother. Your brother. Not just me. I’ve called a friend, an old colleague. There’s a new job lined up for you—one you’re more than ready for. The details are in the envelope. It won’t trap you in these four walls. It will open the world.”

He pressed a card into Andre’s hand.

“If you call that number,” Dimitri said, “I think you’ll enjoy what comes next.”

“Why are you doing this?” Andre whispered. “I’ve never had someone… believe in me like this. Not really.”

“My wife taught me something,” Dimitri said. “Love doesn’t hoard. It releases. I’m not losing you, Andre. I’m sending you where you’re needed most.”

They hugged—awkwardly, carefully, but with more honesty than most people manage in a lifetime.

“Don’t forget us,” Alicia said, wiping her eyes.

“Impossible,” Andre said.

On Thanksgiving morning, in a small apartment across town, the scent of turkey drifted through the air for the first time in years.

Andre’s mother stood over the stove, stirring, still in disbelief that she had been able to quit her exhausting job thanks to the opportunities that had opened up for her son. Marcus sat at the table, grumbling as he peeled potatoes, but he was there. Not on the corner. Not in handcuffs. There.

Someone knocked on the door.

Andre opened it with a grin. “What are you doing here?” his mom asked, laughing. “Shouldn’t you be at work?”

“Not anymore,” he said. “I’m retired. Just like you.”

She stared. “What?”

“It’s a long story,” he said. “I’ll tell you in the car. Come on. Seat belt. Let’s go.”

“In the car?” she repeated. “Where are we going?”

“You’ll see,” he said.

Minutes later, they pulled up outside a familiar mansion. The lights were glowing softly, and a giant wreath hung on the front door.

“You didn’t think we were going to eat alone, did you?” Andre asked, helping his mom out of the car.

Ruth opened the door before they could knock. “You’re late,” she scolded, though her eyes were warm. “The food is getting cold.”

Inside, Dimitri sat at the head of the table, Alicia at his side, their fingers laced together. An extra seat waited for Andre’s mother. Another for Marcus.

“Happy Thanksgiving,” Dimitri said.

For a long moment, nobody moved. The world outside continued in its frenzy—traffic, sales, games on TV. But inside the Turner house, there was only the sound of breathing, of hearts that had been broken and mended, of people who had stumbled and stood back up.

Then the chairs slid back. Plates clinked. Laughter rose.

Andre caught Dimitri’s eye across the table. The older man nodded once, just a slight movement, as if to say: See?

You did the right thing.

It came back to you.

Not as a paycheck.

Not as a favor.

But as a life you never knew you deserved—until you chose to believe you did.