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Jessica’s arm comes around my back.

“Okay,” she says. “Okay. Let’s maintain.”

The word cuts through.

Maintain.

The old family command. Stand up. Smooth your face. Pick up the pieces large enough for company to see. Do not add chaos to chaos.

My spine responds before my mind does. I straighten and pull in a breath. It catches halfway, but it’s still a breath. Jessica keeps one hand at the center of my back and reaches with the other for the flat of salmon geraniums.

“Let’s get to the car,” she says.

“We don’t need those.”

“Yes, we do.”

It’s not meant to be funny. A small laugh breaks through anyway.

Jessica gives me one quick look. “Good. There you are again.”

“I’m leaking.”

“You’ve had a day.”

At the car, she puts the flat carefully in the back seat, buckling it in because Jessica cannot help herself. A geranium leaf gets caught under the strap, and she frees it with the seriousness of a surgeon.

“Home?”

The word lands badly, but there is nowhere else to go.

“Yes.”

The porch light is off because it’s still too early for the timer. The front beds are half-mulched, a stack of unopened bags sitting along the walk where Renny left them last weekend after declaring he needed “a hydration break” and never returning to the project.

Same house. Nothing has changed, and that’s the problem.

I sit in Jessica’s passenger seat and look at it.

“Do you want me to pull into the garage?” she asks.

I shake my head.

Jessica turns off the engine. The sudden quiet makes the house seem larger.

“I can take the flowers in,” she says.

“No, I’ve got them.”

“Paul.”

“I said I’ve got them.”

It comes out sharper than I intend.

Jessica looks at me. Not offended. Jessica does not waste offense. Then she nods.

“Okay.”