Chapter 52 - The Distance Hannah Measured
Hannah came the following evening.
She brought no bread.
That was how I knew the visit was serious.
Lena invited her into the kitchen while I finished helping Nico find a missing page of homework.
When I joined them, Hannah was staring into an untouched cup.
“I told her she should accept.”
Lena nodded.
“She said.”
“I mean it.”
“We believe you.”
Hannah looked toward the window.
“Then why do I feel sick every time she talks about packing?”
Nobody answered immediately.
Outside, the twins were attempting to teach Isabel a game whose rules changed whenever she began winning.
Hannah listened for a moment.
“Do you ever hear them having a good time and start waiting for something to go wrong?”
I sat down.
“Yes.”
She looked at me.
There were subjects on which agreement between us would always carry history.
This was one.
“I used to count money after Ava went to bed,” she said. “Rent first. Then the electricity. Then whatever couldn’t wait.”
Lena remained still.
“Sometimes I’d hear her turn over in the other room and stop moving the coins. I didn’t want her knowing I was frightened.”
“She probably knew,” I said.
Hannah gave a small, unhappy smile.
“She knew everything.”
She wrapped both hands around the cup.
“Now things are better. She has choices. That was the point.”
“Yes,” Lena said.
“But she’s choosing somewhere I can’t hear her come home.”
The room went quiet.
I understood the impulse to offer a solution.
An apartment near ours.
A local placement.
Enough money to remove the need to leave.
All ways of calling fear practical.
“What does she think you’re worried about?” Lena asked.
“That she’ll struggle.”
“Is that it?”
“Some of it.”
Hannah looked down.
“Some of it is that she won’t.”
The admission cost her.
She pressed on.
“What if she gets there and realizes how much she was carrying for me? What if being away feels better?”
Lena reached across the table.
“That wouldn’t mean she stopped loving you.”
“I know.”
“Knowing may take a while to feel useful.”
Hannah laughed once.
“Apparently.”
Later, while Lena showed her the train drawing, I stepped outside to answer a message.
Ava sat on the porch.
I had not heard her arrive.
“Mom’s here?”
“Yes.”
“Did she say I shouldn’t go?”
“No.”
Ava watched the street.
“She keeps asking whether I have enough towels.”
“She may have several questions hiding behind that one.”
“I know.”
For a moment, she looked younger.
Then she asked, “Can you help me make a list?”
“What kind?”
“Things I actually need.”
May you like
I sat beside her.
We began with towels.
