He leaned forward.
'You're not going back to that.'
Not a question. Not a suggestion. Just a fact, delivered quietly, like something he'd already decided before I walked in the door.
I looked at him across the table. The candle between us had burned low. The wine in my glass was still mostly full.
'Do you trust me?' he said. 'Not as—' He paused. 'Not just as someone you used to know. As your attorney.'
I thought about that for a moment. About what it meant to hand something this broken to someone else and say: fix it. About whether I still had the ability to trust anyone at all.
I looked at his face. Steady. No performance in it.
'Yes,' I said.
He opened the leather notebook on the table beside his glass. Uncapped his pen.
'Start from the beginning,' he said. 'Everything you remember. Dates, if you have them. I'll tell you what matters.'
I nodded. And for the first time in fifteen years, I felt something that wasn't quite hope—but was shaped like it.
---
I smelled her before I saw her.
Something floral and expensive, drifting out of the kitchen when I opened the front door. I stood in the hallway and breathed it in and made myself very still.
Then I heard them laughing.
Adelina Castro was standing at my kitchen counter in my apron—the blue one with the frayed hem I'd never gotten around to replacing—leaning back against the sink with her arms crossed, smiling at something Cody had just said. She was wearing it the way women wear things that belong to other women: casually, carelessly, like it had always been hers.
Cody sat at the table. Joshua was already on his second slice. Brooklyn had whipped cream on her chin.
In the center of the table sat a store-bought pumpkin pie in its plastic shell, the grocery sticker still faintly visible on the side.
'It's incredible,' Cody was saying. He shook his head like he was describing something miraculous. 'I don't know how you do it.'
Adelina laughed and touched his shoulder. Her hand rested there a beat too long. Proprietary. Easy. Meant to be seen.
She looked up when I walked in.
'Sara.' Her smile didn't change. 'We saved you a slice.'
I smiled back. The careful smile. The one I'd been practicing for fifteen years—the one that showed teeth and gave away nothing.
'That's so sweet,' I said. 'Give me just a minute.'
I walked down the hall to the bathroom. I closed the door. I turned the lock.
---
The woman in the mirror looked like someone I used to know.
Gaunt. Hollow under the eyes. Hair pulled back in the kind of knot you make when you've stopped thinking about your hair. She looked like someone who had been slowly, quietly disappearing for a very long time and had only just noticed.
I stared at her for a long moment.
Then I pulled out my phone.
*I'm ready. Tell me everything I need to do.*
I hit send. I watched the screen.
Twenty-six seconds.
*Monday. My office. 9 a.m. Don't say anything to him yet.*
I read it twice. Then I put the phone back in my pocket, ran the cold tap, pressed my wet fingers to the back of my neck, and walked back out.
---
I took my seat at the table. I picked up the fork Cody had set out for me—he'd set it on the wrong side, like always—and I cut a small bite of pie.
Adelina was telling a story about a trip to Napa. Her hands moved when she talked. She had beautiful hands. I noticed that.
Brooklyn looked up at me. Mouth full. Eyes bright.
'Mom.' She swallowed. 'Why can't you be more like Aunt Adelina?'
The table kept moving around me. Cody laughed at something. Joshua reached for more whipped cream. The refrigerator hummed.
The words sat in my chest like a stone dropped into still water. I felt the rings spreading outward. I felt every one of them.
I set my fork down.
'Excuse me,' I said.
My voice came out even. I was almost surprised.
I pushed back my chair. I walked out of the kitchen. I didn't look at Adelina's face. I didn't need to.
---
The guest room was at the end of the hall. I'd made up the bed in there months ago for a visit from Cody's cousin that never happened. The sheets were stiff and cold.
I lay on top of them without undressing. I stared at the ceiling.
No tears. I'd expected tears. There was nothing. Just a quiet, settled feeling in my chest, like a door that had been banging in the wind for years had finally, softly, clicked shut.
Monday. Nine a.m.
I closed my eyes.
For the first time in fifteen years, I slept like someone who had already made up her mind.
