Not physically, anyway. She could still see the panic in Einstein’s face.
Her mom sighed. “All right. So long as you’re being careful.”
“I am.”
A beat of silence settled. Bree could hear the hum of the fridge at her parents’ house, the distant tick of the hallway clock that had been there since she was six.
“So,” her mom said. “When are you heading back?”
There it was.
Bree swallowed. “That’s kind of what I wanted to talk about.”
“Okay,” her dad said. His tone shifted; sturdy, prepared. “What’s up?”
She walked to the window and pushed the curtain aside. The boardwalk stretched below; the Cup banner still fluttered. Down near the fountain, a kid chased a bubble that had drifted free from a street vendor’s wand.
“I think I want to stay,” she said. “In Copper Moon. For a while. Longer than we talked about.”
Silence.
Her mom recovered first. “Stay how long?”
“I don’t have an exact date,” Bree said. “But Hank’s looking at opening a performance shop here. And there’s space above it that would make a perfect studio. I stood in it yesterday, and for the first time since Bryn died, I could actually picture myself working somewhere that wasn’t temporary.”
Her dad cleared his throat. “This is about the racer?”
“It’s about the town,” she said quietly. “And the racer. And me. I came here to hide and figure out if I could still paint. Instead, I found a place that feels like I can grow something. With him, yes. But also for myself. We're together. Seeing if it works.”
Her mom’s voice was soft and worried. “You’re not coming home.”
“I’m not saying never,” Bree said. “You two are still my home. But I think… I think I need a home that doesn’t feel like a memorial service all the time. Every corner of the house has a ghost. Every street reminds me of driving behind the hearse. I’ve been living there like I’m waiting for someone to hand me a script for how to move on, and it turns out the pages might be in a different town.”
She waited, heart pounding.
Her dad exhaled slowly. “You know we only kept it that way because we thought it helped you,” he said. “We were afraid changing anything would erase her.”
“I know,” Bree said. “And I love you for that. But she’s not in the throw blanket on the couch or in the shoes by the door. She’s in us. And she’s in what we do with the fact that we’re still here.”
Her mom made a small, strangled sound.
“Mom?” Bree asked.
“I’m all right,” her mom said after a second. “Your father is patting my shoulder like I’m about to collapse, and I’m not. I’m just… hearing you.”
“I’m not running away from Bryn,” Bree said. “I’m trying to carry her somewhere new. I want to use some of the insurance money for the studio. For a series about her. I want people who never knew her to see pieces of her in my work.”
Her dad cleared his throat again, rougher this time. “She’d like that,” he said. “She hated that you hadn’t painted her yet.”
Bree laughed through the tightness in her throat. “She kept saying she wanted to sit for me when she ‘felt less like a raccoon.’ Her words.”
“She always stayed up too late,” her mom said, voice thick. “You really think you can be happy there?”
“I think I can try,” Bree said. “And if it turns out I was wrong, I’ll figure it out. But right now, when I picture the future, it’s not a cliff anymore. It’s a road. And Hank’s on it. And so are you, just... at a different mile marker.”
More silence. Not empty this time; full of things they were both turning over.
“Will we get to meet this Hank properly?” her mom asked at last.
