Theo heard his brother’s death become permission on a public broadcast.
The reporter stood beside a temporary memorial, speaking over a prepared account of the seal. Kellan had paid the price, she said, that made the later choices possible and right. The sentence moved so smoothly toward the next image that Theo almost let it pass. A crowd stood between him and the platform. His helper had found him a chair at the edge so he could leave when the agreed interval ended.
He stood before the interval ended.
“Those aren’t the same thing,” he said.
The reporter looked toward him. Someone in the crowd recognized his name and repeated it. Theo disliked the sudden opening around him, the way grief could make strangers offer space and an audience he had not asked to own.
“My brother died,” he said. “It doesn’t make every decision afterward right.”
The reporter lowered her prepared sheet. “We’re honoring what he made possible.”
“Then don’t use him to close the unresolved cases.”
