"We'll take our car," Nia said. "You can meet us. Bring every document I haven't seen. Listing agreements. Settlement statements. The short sale approval. Marcus's termination packet. All of it."
Simone nodded once. "I'll bring the file."
They collected Amara, who was delighted by the sudden field trip and chattered about yellow walls and oranges all the way down the stairs. Nia buckled her into the back seat of Marcus's sedan—her own car was still in long-term parking at the airport, another detail that suddenly felt like a metaphor—and sat in the passenger seat with her coat folded in her lap. Marcus drove. His hands were steady on the wheel. His face was not.
Oak Hollow announced itself with newer trees and older ambitions. The houses were close together, tidy, less polished than the street they were leaving. No one had hired the same landscape designer. A basketball hoop stood crooked in a driveway. A chalk hopscotch grid faded on a sidewalk. Nia watched it all pass and felt the class panic she hated admitting she possessed—the fear of sliding, of being seen sliding, of Amara noticing the difference between what they had and what they would have.
Simone's white SUV was already in front of a pale blue house with a narrow porch and a citrus tree in the side yard, heavy with green oranges that would ripen later in the year. Simone stood on the porch with a folder thicker than a novel.
Inside, the house smelled like fresh paint and emptiness. The living room was smaller. The kitchen had older appliances and a window over the sink that looked onto a wooden fence. Amara ran ahead calling out rooms as if naming them could claim them. Nia walked slowly, touching doorframes, counting outlets, measuring with her eyes the distance between what pride wanted and what mathematics allowed.