Page 3 of What Remains of Grace

A pause. “Are you okay?”

She almost laughed. Okay. The word didn’t even fit in her mouth. “Just—cancel everything for the week and forward my calls. I’ll text you when I land.”

“Land where?”

Jenna hung up before answering, then she booked a flight to Tampa. 4:45 p.m., Delta. She had no idea what she typed into the last box, something like family emergency or funeral.

When she looked up again, Mark was standing a few feet away, mid-sentence, pointing at the crooked cabinets. His voice sounded far away, like it was coming through water.

“—so if we pull them now, we’ll need to patch the wall again, but if we wait for the replacements—”

She blinked, realizing the crew was all here. Her throat tightened. The room felt too small.

“I can’t—” Her voice cracked. She shut the laptop hard, the sound sharp in the silence. “I can’t do this right now. I just . . . I have a family emergency.”

She grabbed her keys off the counter. Mark started to say something, but she was already moving.

Whispers followed her out the door, fading with the sounds of boots scuffing against the new floors and tools clattering somewhere in the distance.

Outside, she got into her truck, the too-bright sunlight blinding her as she slammed the door like punctuation.

She didn’t cry. There wasn’t room for that yet. Her body had gone on autopilot: driving home, packing a bag, checking the time. Her hands moved, but her brain didn’t. By the time she reached the interstate toward Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport, the sun had shifted, slanting across the windshield in dizzy gold stripes. The traffic streaked around her in a fog of brake lights, billboards, and people singing in their cars.

Her phone kept lighting up with work calls. They were being forwarded, but still flashed across the screen before routing to some unknown extension, meaningless numbers from a world that suddenly didn’t matter. She ignored every single one. She just wanted to go back to the version of the day where her biggest problem was a crooked cabinet.

She tried to think through her active projects, to ground herself in something familiar, but her brain was cloudy. She couldn’t even remember which houses were hers or which deadlines she’d already met.

At the airport, everything moved too fast.

The parking lot shuttle was crowded. A man brushed her elbow and muttered an apology without truly acknowledging her. She was grateful for his disregard.

The driver made jokes over the loudspeaker about weekend travelers. Everyone laughed.

Inside the terminal, the noise swelled with the sound of rolling bags, coffee orders, and flight announcements.

The normal hum of people living their normal lives.

She checked her bag, answered security questions automatically, and stepped out of her shoes at TSA. The line shuffled forward, inch by inch, with fluorescent light buzzing overhead.

Ma’am, laptop out of the case. Step through. Have a great day.

Each kindness stung.

Have a great day. Enjoy your flight. See you next time.

She nodded, unable to speak. How could she have a great day? How could she enjoy this flight?

The overhead train voice chimed cheerfully as the doors closed: “Next stop: Concourse B. B for Burgers and Beverages, which you can find at all of our concourses.”

Someone laughed as the recorded voice repeated it, bright and unbothered.

She clung to the rail as the train jolted forward. For a moment, she imagined staying there, just circling the airport forever, never boarding, and never landing anywhere real again.

But when the doors opened, she stepped out because that’s what you do. You keep moving.

Concourse B buzzed with the motions of wheels dragging over tile, the smell of coffee, the echo of names over the PA, and the sound of laughter spilling from a bar somewhere, loud and alive.

Her gate sat directly across from a Bakery Atlanta Bread Company kiosk. It wasn’t anything like the Blue Cypress, more chain, more soups and salads. But still, the word bakery was enough to make her pause. Aunt M had said something about the stress of running the business, and the guilt began to set in.