“You ready, Miss Mitchell?”
Emma looked at the bags lined against the wall.
“Almost.”
Alex stepped forward at last. “Emma, maybe we should slow down.”
That finally made her look directly at him.
His face was pale in the way people get when they realize a scene will not go the way they expected. He had Linda’s eyes and Bob’s jaw. He was handsome in a forgettable corporate way, the kind of man who still believed adulthood would continue to arrange itself around him if he used the right vocabulary. Growing up, he had always received the softer interpretation of events. If Emma was stubborn, Alex was determined. If Emma was blunt, Alex was honest. If Emma spent too much time climbing, she was reckless. If Alex spent too much money, he was ambitious.
Now he stood in front of her wearing loafers that cost more than the boots she wore guiding teenagers through sleet, and he had the nerve to say slow down.
“Now?” Emma asked. “You want to slow down now?”
His mouth tightened. “We’re all upset.”
“You packed my books in trash bags.”
Linda exhaled hard. “Emma, for God’s sake, stop acting like we’re monsters.”
Denise, to her credit, busied herself by adjusting the lift platform and gave them the illusion of privacy.
Emma wheeled herself toward the front door. Denise handled the threshold with practiced ease. The morning air felt bright and cool against Emma’s skin. Across the street Mrs. Talbot from three houses down had paused in the middle of watering her geraniums. She was pretending not to watch. Linda noticed and straightened instinctively.
There it was. The real pulse beneath the whole thing. Not care. Optics.
“At least tell us where you’re going,” Linda called.
Emma settled onto the lift, the metal humming softly beneath her chair.
“Don’t worry about me,” she said. “You’ll hear about it soon enough.”
The vehicle door closed, muting the house behind her.
As Denise secured the chair and slid into the driver’s seat, Emma let herself look through the rear window one last time. Linda stood with her arms crossed too tightly over her chest. Bob had appeared behind her now, one hand on the doorframe, frowning not with grief but with irritation, as if things had become unnecessarily public. Alex stood half a step apart, staring after the van with a baffled look, like a man who had expected to be forgiven in advance.
