Aaliyah unbuckled her seatbelt when they parked. She smoothed her dusty-rose sweater—a different one from that first afternoon, but the same color, as if some part of her had chosen continuity without consulting the rest. She opened her door. The air was cool and smelled of wet leaves.
"Ready?" Marcus asked.
"No," Aaliyah said. "But I'm here."
They walked in together, Elias between them, gold already imagined around his neck, the drawing of Captain the fox rolled carefully in his fist, and the late light followed them as far as the glass doors before giving them up to the fluorescent quiet of the lobby, where a woman at the desk smiled and said Ruth was in the garden room today, having a clear hour, asking for the boy.
Aaliyah felt her eyes sting. She blinked once. She took her son's hand.
"Then let's not waste a clear hour," she said, and they went down the hall toward whatever love was still possible on a tired brain's good day, which was not everything, and not nothing, and enough—for now—to walk toward without looking away.