“You’d probably just have to ask, knowing Milo,” Sara said as she scrolled through her phone. “This Vegas group chat is a mess. Think you can get everyone organized?”
Hanna nodded, snagging a piece of the banana. “I will. Tell Matty to send me his wishlist for dinner plans. I know he’s already got a list in his notes app.”
“Perfect,” Sara chimed, setting her phone down and tilting her head. “You look really good, Han.”
“It’s just a dress,” Hanna said.
“I mean, in general. You can tell you’re sleeping better.”
“I feel more like me,” Hanna said, her voice tightening. “I am getting a little nervous about seeing Logan.”
“I was wondering when we’d get there. Have you guys talked at all?”
“No,” Hanna sighed. Not for his lack of trying.
“We’ll spend most of the weekend with the girls,” Sara said. “He’ll hardly be there.”
“You’re right.” And she knew Sara was, but her face still heated, her muscles unconvinced.
The way the shadows intertwined in the early summer swathes of light over the courtyard brushed against a memory, one she thought she’d locked far enough away that it couldn’t find her in a new city.
She’d spent those early warm days the year prior listening to aunts and uncles argue over floral arrangements and Bible readings in the hospice courtyard, as if any of them had been the one to sign their name on the stack of hospice paperwork confirming that they were, indeed, giving up. As if any of it even mattered.
Every time she signed her name on a receipt, the space between her thumb and forefinger ached—it felt like condemning her mother all over again.
Whatever it was that lurked in the shadows seeped into her skin, bleeding into her veins and souring the day.
“Arizona!”
She closed her laptop halfway, straightening in the patio chair as Milo approached, dressed for the office. He’d left early that morning, and she’d seen him dart from the lobby as she left the diner with her coffee and bagel.
“You got lunch plans?”
Hanna didn’t have a grip around the next five minutes.
“You buying?” she asked, sliding her laptop into her bag.
“If you pretend to be really interested in enterprise-grade infosec software, I can expense it.”
She walked a few blocks with him as he ran her through all of the summer specials he was planning with Frankie, waiting for her approval on each of them. She nodded and hummed as he spoke, her mind stuck on the phone charger she’d left in the small office center of the hospice home. It had been one of the really good cords, not the flimsy shit.
She’d never get another one like it.
The restaurant air chilled her shoulders as they wound through wobbling tables. Her eyes stayed fixed on the vinyl coating between them, still thinking about all the things the hospice home had taken from her.
“Thanks, man,” Milo said, and Hanna’s eyes snapped away from his hands. “There she is.” He chuckled as he handed the menu back to the waiter. Hanna hadn’t even noticed he’d arrived.
“What did I order?” she asked.
“Caesar, fries, and a Diet Coke.”
“You’re useful to have around on the weird days, I’ll give you that,” she muttered, shaking her head as if she might be able to loosen the muck clinging to her mind.
“You ever read The Body Keeps the Score?” Milo asked, unfolding the linen napkin on the table and laying it over his work pants.
“I’m a thirty-year-old woman,” Hanna laughed. “Of course I’ve read it, long before the mom shit.”
Milo held his hands up in surrender. “The first year is hard, but the second year is grieving the loss of a person and the loss of the last year of your life.”
