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Patty’s words returned. The guilt hit hard. Not only about Missy. About Hudson. Caldwell. Grandma Ruth. Every person waiting for me to decide how much truth they were allowed to have.

I closed the laptop.

I needed air, and I wasn’t going to get it in this apartment.

After changing into leggings and a T-shirt, I tied my shoes and grabbed my keys.

Running had become the one thing capable of interrupting thoughts without solving them. I didn’t want a solution. I wanted silence.

I left Missy’s email unanswered and headed for the stairs, already planning the route that would keep me moving longest.

19

HUDSON

COULD YOU HOLD SOMETHING FOR ME?

The next monthly birthday party was already loud enough to be heard from the lower road when Sloane and I arrived. Music poured through the open doors of the hall, mixed with laughter and shouted greetings. I heard a crash, but nobody reacted to it, so I assumed it didn’t matter.

Sloane glanced toward the building as she parked. “How many birthdays are we celebrating this month?”

“Seven.”

“That seems manageable.”

“One of them is Trevor.”

She paused with her hand on the door handle. “So eight, emotionally.”

“Correct.”

The evening was warm enough that Julie and Patty had moved part of the party outside. String lights stretched from the hall to several poles around the back lawn. Folding tables held food, drinks, gifts, and cakes in varying stages of structural risk. A temporary dance floor had been laid across the flattest section of grass, though several of the littles had already expanded its boundaries into the gravel.

Sloane stood beside me and took it all in.

She had picked me up from my place on the way to the hall. I always wanted as much time with her as I could get, even if that meant a few minutes of holding her hand and talking on a short drive down a gravel road.

Today, she was dressed in denim shorts, a fitted blue shirt, and white sneakers. Her hair was pulled into a loose ponytail, leaving her face open and brighter than it had been when she first came to the pack.

The changes in her had become impossible not to notice. Her posture no longer carried the same readiness to retreat. She smiled before people approached rather than after deciding they were safe. Her heart rate remained calm even when several relatives turned toward us at once.

I had watched confidence grow in her one walk, one dinner, and one family event at a time.

She slipped her hand into mine.

“Ready?” I asked.

She smiled. “Ready as I’ll ever be.”

We crossed the lawn.

The atmosphere was loud and chaotic in the way only thirty-five Blackwells, Carpenters, and Kipners could manage. At the head table, Grandpa Alfonse sat proudly in his paper crown, eyeing the dessert table with the fierce concentration of a man waiting to claim the first slice of pecan pie.

Sloane and Patty stood near the beverage station, watching Trevor attempt to balance three plates of garlic potatoes at once. Patty reached into the ice chest for a soda, the metal can clicking against the ice.

Beside them, Aunt Karen appeared out of nowhere as she surveyed Patty’s plate and choice of drink.

When Patty pulled out the soda, Karen pointedly nudged a bowl of fruit toward her. “You know, if you spent half as much time working on physical conditioning as you do on graphic novels, maybe your body would have developed properly.”