Lucy's been known to raid the refrigerator when the garage books run late." Sky smiled faintly. She walked to the window and looked out over a strip of grass where a narrow stone path led to a shed. "It's quiet." "Too quiet some days," Gregory admitted, and then immediately worried that he had made her feel like somebody expected to fill his loneliness.
He sat down on the chair by the door rather than follow her around the room. "You don't owe me company," he said. "If this is ever approved, you'd have your own space, and you would keep going to school. I'd get help from people who know more about raising teenagers than I do." Natalie wrote a note without looking up.
Sky examined the bookshelf, then turned to him. "Would I still get to go to the garage?" "If the safety plan allows it," he said. "It's not the whole world, Sky. I know it can seem like it from the inside."
On the drive back, she asked Natalie whether an adult could change his mind after a court approved a placement. Natalie was quiet for a few seconds before answering. "Adults can find out they're not prepared, and sometimes plans have to change. But a good plan includes people and services that help before things fall apart." Sky looked through the window at passing houses.
"That's a lot of words for maybe." Natalie nodded. "It is. I don't want to call it a guarantee when it isn't one."
At the garage the crew made an effort not to treat Sky like the center of a permanent emergency. Jimmy still corrected her perspective lines, Terry still complained when somebody left tools where customers could trip over them, and Lucy still insisted on keeping receipts for everything. Sky seemed to relax most when someone gave her an ordinary task with a clear beginning and end. She labeled color swatches, reorganized the sketch paper, and helped choose which donated art supplies could be shared with a nearby youth center. Nothing depended on her being the sister of a fallen club member, and that was beginning to matter as much as the help itself.
Gregory noticed the change one afternoon when he heard her arguing with Jimmy about the shape of a motorcycle fender. "The line needs to rise at the back," Jimmy said, holding out a charcoal pencil. "Only if you want it to look like every other fender you've painted," Sky replied. The room froze for half a second, then Jimmy laughed.
"Fair enough. Show me what you mean." The girl took the pencil and did, and Gregory realized that she had just disagreed with an adult without checking whether the disagreement would cost her dinner.