Ethan crawled over and attached himself to Jojo’s ankle, making wet, satisfied noises. Jojo grinned, ruffled the baby’s hair, and started packing up his things.
“Alright,” he said, “I’ve got to go. I swear, Ethan needs a bath twenty times a day.”
I grinned. “He probably does.”
Jojo buttoned up his hoodie, lifted Ethan onto his hip, and turned at the door. “Hey,” he said, like he’d just remembered something important, “if you ever want to sleep in, just let us know. We’ll take Emilio for you for the night.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I mean it.”
He gave me a thumbs up, then was gone, the sound of his boots fading to nothing down the hall.
I sat there for a second, and let the kitchen re-settle into its new quiet.
The tightness across my shoulders—the one I’d carried since the morning of the last threat, since before the courthouse and the standoff and all of it—finally let go.
Just like that.
For a while, I did nothing at all.
In the afternoon, the house took on a quiet that was so complete it almost felt alive. Hooper was out in the barn—there was a rhythmic, metallic clank every so often, like someone was teaching a transmission how to sing the blues, but the noise barely made it past the kitchen walls.
Instead, it arrived in the living room as a faint vibration, just enough to set the window glass humming on its own wavelength.
Emilio and I were on the floor, the old wool blanket spread out over the hardwood in a vain attempt to keep the cold from leeching up into our bones. Emilio was absorbed in the rings on his play gym, batting at them with the kind of intense, all-consuming purpose I hadn’t seen since my own finals week.
Every few seconds he’d make a fist, swing for the lowest ring, miss, then try again. I could see the logic in it—the repetition, the insistence—but also the gentleness in how he never seemed to get angry when he missed.
I watched him for a long time, knees folded, arms around my own shins, just breathing in the small, greenhouse-warm air of the living room. The snow outside had stopped, or nearly; what drifted down now was so fine it might as well have been dust. Through the window, everything was blank and white and flat, the only sign of life a single magpie picking at the seed feeder under the porch.
From where I sat, I could see the entire downstairs: the kitchen table with the ledger open and a pencil still rolling in a slow circle, the half-empty casserole dish on the counter, the backpack I’d used as a diaper bag hanging from the back of a chair.
In the hallway, a row of hooks held three jackets—mine, Hooper’s, and a little down vest Rawley had bought for Emilio when it became clear the kid would outgrow all his clothes twice as fast as advertised.
Down the hall, the nursery door was ajar. I could see the edge of the crib, the rag quilt Jojo had stitched in a fit of optimism, and, tucked onto the windowsill, a photograph in a cheap silver frame. The picture was of me, holding Emilio in one arm and a bottle in the other, both of us asleep on the couch. I had no memory of the moment, but it was exactly the kind of memory I wanted to keep.
The reckoning hit me just after two, a slow, tidal thing that started in the chest and radiated out through the rest of my body. There was no warning, no soundtrack, no dramatic shift in the lighting. Just a sudden, full-bodied awareness of the last year: the gas station bathroom in Billings, the way my hands had shaken so badly I’d cut my own chin while trying to shave; the motels, each one a new variation on the same theme of beige walls and the faint smell of mildew; four hours straight of checking my rearview, the road coiling behind me like a live wire. The tree line in December, the porch light, the promise to myself that I’d leave as soon as I was sure Emilio was safe.
What I hadn’t realized, not until that moment, was that I’d done every one of those things alone. Not because I wanted to, but because I’d been told, for so long and so often, that my judgment didn’t count. That every decision required a second, third, or fourth opinion. That safety was something handed down from above, not something you could build yourself.
I let myself sit in it for a while. I didn’t try to push the feeling away, or drown it with busy work, or mute it with a joke about the weather. I just watched Emilio, and let the year run through me like weather.
Jasper had told me once that the only way to get over a hard thing was to let it move through you, to treat it like an animal that wanted to be noticed, not locked away in the basement.
Eventually, Emilio got a grip on the lowest ring. He held on with both hands, his whole body going still and rigid with the effort. His face was pure concentration, eyes blue as sky and jaw set in a line I recognized from the mirror.
He looked at me, then at the ring, then back at me, as if to say: See? I got it.
I grinned and reached out, let him wrap his fingers around mine. He squeezed, hard, and then laughed—one of those baby giggles that starts deep in the gut and doesn’t know when to quit.
I laughed, too. The sound surprised me, but it felt good, like the first drink of water after a long run.
When Hooper came in from the barn, he tracked snow halfway down the hall, then stopped at the living room doorway, hands on his hips, breathing steam in short, sharp huffs.
He looked at us, at the mess of toys and the baby on my lap, and just shook his head. “Wrecking the joint already,” he said, his voice a gravelly mutter.
I shrugged. “We had a good run.”
He dropped onto the floor beside me, sitting with his back against the couch, legs stretched out in front of him. His jeans were stained with grease, his shirt untucked and missing a button, but he looked more comfortable than anyone I’d ever known.
