When she disappeared again, I stared down at my coffee and at the appointment reminder still glowing on my phone.
This was my decision. My life. My rehab.
So why did it feel like I’d just been maneuvered into doing the right thing by someone who’d barely said ten words to me before breakfast?
Getting showeredand out the door was a whole damn operation.
I shrugged on my coat with more effort than I wanted to admit, wrestling my arm through the second sleeve while my balance adjusted. Then the boots—one easy, one not. I hated putting them on while sitting down, but there wasn’t really another option unless I wanted to risk face-planting before we even hit the porch.
By the time I made it to the front door, my residual limb was already starting to complain, and the cold never helped.
Clara was waiting by the entryway, keys in hand, a chunky knit hat pulled low over her ears. She glanced at me, then reached past to open the door. The blast of Michigan winter slapped me in the face.
“Watch the top step,” she said, and then—nothing. No reaching. No hovering. She stepped out ahead of me, moving to the side so I had a clear shot at the stairs.
I gripped the banister and took the first step down, slow and careful. Snow clung to the edges of the boards, the kind thatpacked into a slick film over the wood. Anyone else would have had a hand clamped around my arm by now, breathing down my neck.
Clara just walked ahead of me, boots crunching on the path as she hit the bottom and veered toward the car. My truck, for once, stayed where it was. Today, she was driving.
By the time I reached the last step, she’d already unlocked the passenger side and was sitting in the driver’s seat, fiddling with the radio or the vents, pointedly not looking at me.
I made my way across the yard, leg heavy, focusing on each placement of my foot. No gasp of panic when I slipped slightly on a patch of ice, no startled movement in my peripheral vision. She stayed bent over the console until she heard the door close.
The silence in the car was thick enough to chew on. She buckled her seat belt, then reached for the ignition. The engine turned over, heater roaring to life.
“Seat warmers work,” she said, flicking a switch on my side. “In case you were wondering.”
“Great.” The word was flat.
We pulled out of the drive and headed toward town, the wipers squeaking across the windshield. Snowbanks rose on either side of the road, the sky that familiar, oppressive gray.
After a minute, she tried again. “Star Harbor looks different,” she said, mostly to the windshield. “When did we get so many people? And a second stoplight?”
“Summer,” I said.
“Is that because of the farm?” Her mouth curved faintly. “Elodie won’t shut up about the restaurant. She said your crew did the heavy lifting.”
My shoulder rose. “Some of it.”
“Did you design it?”
“Parts.”
My clipped answers dropped between us like cinder blocks.
She huffed out a little breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “You know most people would turn that into a humblebrag.” She lowered her voice to sound like a man. “‘Yeah, I built half this town, no big deal.’”
I almost laughed. “Most people like talking more than I do.”
A short burst of laughter huffed out of her nose. “Noted.”
For a while, Clara filled the space with small observations—how her favorite bakery wasn’t around anymore, how the Lady’s Lantern sign had been repainted, how the lake still managed to look both beautiful and scary in winter. It was mostly one-sided, her voice a low hum under the grind of the tires on packed snow.
I stared out the window, watching the familiar streets slide by.
She wasn’t treating me like glass. She wasn’t talking to me like I might break. She was just driving a man to his appointment and occasionally tossing words into the void to see if any would stick.
I didn’t know what to do with that any more than I knew what to do with pity. Both made me feel off-balance, like the ground under my feet had shifted and I was the last to know.
The clinic came into view all at once—brick, glass, too much light. Clara pulled into a spot and shifted into park.
Her fingers drummed the steering wheel once. “You want to go in,” she said, “or you want me to turn around? We can make a break for it. It would be very on brand for me.”
My mouth twisted into something resembling a smile.
“Let’s go,” I said before I could talk myself out of it.
