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"Thank you."

The words left my mouth polished and automatic.

He smiled.

It was astonishing how little it took to make him feel tall.

I ate. Small bites, paced evenly. I put the fork down between them because eating too fast looked anxious and eating too slowly looked manipulative. I finished the chicken first, then the broccoli, then half the rice. That had once been the safest order. Protein first so he could not say I filled up on carbs. Vegetables second so he could not say I ignored them. Rice last, and never all of it.

My body remembered the choreography perfectly.

But I was not inside it anymore.

That was the difference.

I watched myself lift the fork. Watched myself keep my shoulders rounded and my face neutral. Watched the old little machine run its program and thought: this is too small for me now.

Not my body. Not my voice.

The life.

Six weeks of Carrow Creek had ruined me for this table.

Six weeks of rules written in my own handwriting, negotiated in Boone's cabin with tea between us and the paper turned so I could read every line. Rules I could question. Rules I could revoke. Rules that ran both directions.

Eat three times a day.

Report pain same-day.

Ask before carrying what was too heavy.

No lies with good posture.

This was not care. It had never been care. This was one man arranging another human being until the room looked right to him.

Derek sat across from me with a glass of wine and watched me eat.

"You look better," he said. "Thinner in the face."

"Do I?"

"A little tired. But we'll fix that." He took a drink. "I withdrew the complaint."

My fork paused over the rice.

He leaned back, expansive now, waiting for the gratitude.

"Called the sheriff myself. Told him the whole thing had gotten blown out of proportion and I wasn't interested in pursuing charges. Your cowboy should be out in a day or two."

A day or two.

The storm arrived in hours.

A hundred and forty close-up heifers. Sixty pairs on the ground. Roads that would stop existing by Thursday night.

My fingers tightened around the fork.

Derek noticed.