She poured herself a coffee and sat down across from an 8-year-old at 6:45 in the morning and quietly, very quietly, started to piece herself back together. She was not aware yet that it had started, but it had. It absolutely had. She was gone before Mrs. Patterson arrived.
She took a cab to the nearest cell phone store to get her phone charged, sent three emails she'd been putting off for 2 weeks, called her former landlord about the deposit she was still owed, and booked a room at an extended stay motel 20 minutes from Meridian while she figured out her next move. She handled all of it methodically, efficiently, with the competence of someone who had been dealing with logistics in crisis mode long enough that crisis mode had started to natural state. She did not think about the charger on the counter. She did not think about the sticky note. She did not think about tired in a costume.
She was fine. She was handling it. This was what she did. When she walked into Meridian Medical Supply at 8:58 that morning, she was in clean clothes from her suitcase, her badge clipped to her jacket, her expression professional and sealed and completely totally normal. She made it exactly 14 steps past the lobby before she ran into Marcus.
He was coming around the corner from the loading dock with a clipboard and a cup of coffee, moving with that particular focused energy he always had at work, purposeful, contained, not rude, but clearly not available for small talk. He saw her. He stopped. "Hey," he said. Hey, she said.
They looked at each other in the hallway of Meridian Medical Supply, where they were co-workers and nothing else. Where last night had no context and no weight. where two people could easily pretend that nothing had happened between them and nobody would ever know the difference. Charger worked? He asked. Yes, thank you.
I'll get it back to you. No rush. Your daughter is very smart. Something shifted in his face. Not quite a smile, but the suggestion of one.
Yeah, he said she is. She told me you said pretending to be okay is just being tired in a costume. He actually smiled then. Small and real. She quotes me back at the worst times.
She quoted you at exactly the right time. Clare said. He looked at her for a moment. You doing all right? I'm handling it.
That's not what I asked. The same word she'd used on him last night about the food. She heard it and she knew he heard it too. She stopped. Restarted.
I found a place and extended stay. I'm fine. Okay, he said. Okay, she said. He nodded and moved to step past her and then he stopped again.