Page 221 of Tessa and Nash

“Come see me tomorrow,” she murmurs against my hair.

“I will.”

“I packed you the lemon cake from the kitchen before you go.”

I pull back enough to stare at her. “In the middle of this, you’re thinking about cake?”

“In the middle of this,” she says with perfect dignity, “I’m thinking that men are useless in a crisis unless fed.”

That earns a watery laugh from me.

Nash, to my right, says, “That is the wisest thing anybody’s said to me all year.”

Grandma pats my cheek. “Go on now.”

So I do.

Nash takes the heavier suitcase without argument, then the second when I try to keep hold of it out of reflex. We walk to the truck in the cold quiet of the evening, the gravel crunching beneath our feet.

I don’t look back until I’m at the passenger door.

Grandma is still on the porch, one hand lifted.

The sight of her standing there, small but unshakable beneath the porch light, lodges somewhere painful and permanent inside me.

I raise my hand back.

Then I get in the truck before I can lose my mind and run back into the house to unpack everything.

For the first few minutes, neither of us speaks.

Buckhorn rolls by in pockets of yellow light and shuttered storefronts. The town square looks almost dreamy at night, the gazebo outlined in strings of bulbs, the world quiet in that deceptive way small towns manage after dark, as though all their sharp edges disappear once people go home.

My suitcases are in the back. My document box is at my feet. My whole life feels suspended between one address and another.

Nash drives with both hands on the wheel for once, which tells me he is being careful on purpose.

Finally, he says, “Do you want to tell me how bad it was?”

I stare out the window. “Bad enough.”

He nods once. “All right.”

I glance at him. “That’s it?”

He shrugs lightly. “You looked like you didn’t want me marching back there and punching your uncle in the teeth, so I’m trying a more measured approach.”

Despite myself, I smile. “How noble of you.”

“I contain multitudes.”

“Mostly poor decisions.”

“Historically, yes.”

I lean back into the seat and let out a breath. “He said if I left, not to expect to come back when it falls apart.”

Nash’s grip tightens on the wheel. “That’s cruel.”