She paused but also yes also happy. In March, Daniel moved Amara to Atlanta. The last weekend before the move, he drove up to Charlotte on Friday night. And on Saturday morning, he took Amara to Patty's Diner on the east side of the city. They sat in the same booth.
He ordered the strawberry rhubarb pie even though it was 10:00 in the morning, and Amara looked at him with full judgment, and he ignored the judgment completely. Lauren met them there at 11:00. She slid into the booth next to Amara. Gloria came over with coffee and looked at the three of them with the same professional disinterest she brought to everything in that diner and said, "The strawberry rhubarb is especially good today. " "That's what he keeps saying," Amara said, gesturing at Daniel. "He's right," Gloria said and left.
Amara looked at the pie, looked at Daniel, looked at Lauren. "Is this where it started? " Daniel and Lauren looked at each other across the table. Yeah, Daniel said, more or less. And now we're here, Amara said, already picking up a fork for pie at 10:00 in the morning. 11, Lauren said, "Still pie in the morning. " Amara took a bite.
Her expression changed. "Okay, I understand now. " Daniel laughed. Lauren laughed. The diner moved around them the way diners do, ordinary, indifferent, full of other people's stories, running alongside their own. Later that afternoon, after the pie and after, Amara had fallen asleep in the back seat, the way she only did on long drives when she felt completely safe.
Daniel drove them back south toward Atlanta. Lauren rode in the passenger seat. The city of Charlotte fell away behind them and opened into highway, and the February sky over the Carolas was that pale winter blue that goes on forever. Lauren was quiet for a while. Then she looked at Daniel.
You remember the first night? She said, "I remember. " "You asked me where I wanted to go and I said, "Somewhere private because I wanted somewhere I could hear my own voice. " "Yeah. " She looked at the road ahead. I can hear it now all the time. It's actually kind of loud. He glanced at her.
She was almost smiling. The particular smile of a woman who has arrived somewhere she fought for and is still a little surprised to actually be there. Does it say good things? He said mostly. She looked at him.
It says I chose right. He reached over. She put her hand in his on the center console the same way she had in a truck months ago when Charlotte was behind them. And neither of them knew what was ahead. He kept driving.
Amara slept in the back. The highway opened up. The sky went on. There was no grand arrival, no dramatic finish line. Just a man who had stopped being afraid of wanting things, a woman who had stopped being silent about needing them, and a road that belonged to neither of them, and both of them at the same time.
Daniel Brooks did not look in the rear view mirror. He looked at the road in front of him, at the woman beside him, at his daughter's reflection in the mirror above, sleeping safe, completely certain the ground beneath her was solid. And it was. It absolutely was.