That's the part that stays with me.
Not the freeze. Not the empty car seat or the minutes I spent not knowing if she was going to come back to herself. The taillights ahead of me on Route 10 going steady and certain around the first curve — that's what I carry when I pull out after her.
She climbs in steady.
She climbed in anyway, when she wasn't.
Aiden materializes at my shoulder with the restrained silence of a man who witnessed something and is giving it the respect of not immediately turning it into conversation. He holds it for a long moment. Then he doesn't.
"You good?" he asks.
"Yeah."
"Lockhart good?"
I think about her hand in mine. The way she turned her palm up. The way she held on like holding on was something she'd made a decision about.
"She's going to be," I say.
Aiden nods. Doesn't push it, which is one of three things I consistently appreciate about him.
My radio crackles. My crew is loaded and ready.
I walk back to the engine.
There's a version of me from not that long ago who would have cataloged this moment and filed it underevidence this is complicatedand used it to talk himself back from the edge of something real. That version of me was very diligent. He was also very alone in a way he kept calling discipline.
The mountain is going orange at the peak. Her taillights are already disappearing around the next bend.
Neither of us needs to be perfect. We just need to keep showing up.
Chapter 19
Gemma
The therapy session runs over.
Not because anything dramatic happened — no breakthrough, no ugly cry, no moment where Dr. Nishida hands me a tissue and says the thing that cracks me open. Just a session that goes long because she keeps asking the right questions and I keep actually answering them, which is, apparently, what therapy is. Novel concept. Really taking to it.
I sit in my car in the parking lot after. Not falling apart. Just sitting with the lightness that comes from saying true things out loud to a professional and not needing her to fix them. My stomach growls because I forgot to eat before I came, and my phone has a text from Tommy that says:
Tommy: FYI Captain Grumpy Sunshine has checked his phone every time he thought no one was looking during end-of-shift wrap. I counted. I'm keeping a log. For science. You're welcome.
I stare at the ceiling of my car.
"Captain Grumpy Sunshine," I say out loud.
Then I drive home.
The kitchen light is on.
Beck is standing at the counter in his worn flannel shirt — the one with the loose button on the cuff that I keep meaning to sew back on and then don't — pouring creamer into his coffee. It's late for coffee. That's not about the caffeine; that's about the ritual, the something-to-hold, the reason to stand in a lit kitchen for a few extra minutes before the quiet of the house settles in. Through the connecting door, which I've stopped closing, the amber glow of Ivy's dinosaur nightlight seeps from her room. Beck had texted her bedtime report in three installments:Pillow dispute resolved. Clarence has been appointed guardian. Provisionally.
Beck looks up when I come through the door. "Good?"
"Yeah." I drop my bag on the chair. "Good."
He nods and looks back at the creamer.
