“After Caleb died, Jaylen started building things. First to fix what broke around the house. Then to keep the lights on. Then to keep my medicine cold.” She looked at the device on the table. “That invention isn’t yours.”
“I know,” Wendell said.
“Do you?”
“Yes.”
Jaylen’s eyes glistened, but his jaw was hard.
“Your company killed my daddy?”
Wendell did not defend himself.
He did not call it complicated.
He did not mention acquisitions or liability or how many executives had stood between him and the Georgia test site.
He only said, “My company failed him.”
Jaylen took one step back.
That hurt more than Wendell expected.
Mrs. Tate touched her son’s shoulder.
“We don’t need anything from him.”
But the lie could not survive the room.
It was there in the medicine bottle. The past-due notice. The roof leaking sunlight. The boy’s handmade refrigerator box. The mother standing too long because sitting down would admit weakness.
