Sky placed her backpack on the bed and walked to the window. Through the branches she could see a neighbor taking recycling bins to the curb and a child practicing a bicycle turn in the street. Nothing remarkable was happening. That was the remarkable part. No one was waiting to search her belongings, announce another transfer, or tell her that a drawing had earned some invisible punishment. She rested her palm on the windowsill and asked when they would have to leave.
"We don't have to go anywhere tonight," Gregory said. "School tomorrow, groceries after that, and your first check-in is Thursday." Sky looked over her shoulder. "You already know Thursday?"
He held up the calendar Lucy had insisted he buy. "I put it in writing because Terry said I'd forget if I didn't." The girl smiled, and Gregory found that her smile was nothing like Luther's. It belonged to her alone.
The first weeks required adjustments nobody had considered dramatic enough to include in a courtroom speech. Gregory learned that Sky disliked loud knocking, so he began calling from the hallway before approaching her door. Sky learned that he woke early and listened to old radio broadcasts while making breakfast, a habit she teased him about until he asked her to choose the station. At the grocery store they argued over cereal and discovered they had different ideas about how much fruit one household could reasonably eat in a week. When she forgot to take a school form out of her backpack, he reminded her without using the mistake as evidence that she could not be trusted.
Lucy handled much of the paperwork at first, then gradually taught Gregory how to do it himself. She showed him where to keep the agency contacts, how to record appointment dates, and why Sky's personal documents should be secured without being treated like property he owned. Terry helped arrange transportation when the garage was busy, and Elena became the adult Sky could call when she wanted advice that did not involve motorcycle engines. Denise remained in touch, sending a photograph of the marigolds Sky had helped plant outside the respite home's front steps. The network was not perfect, but it existed on paper and in ordinary daily habits, which made it stronger than any promise delivered during a crisis.
At the garage Jimmy was waiting with news. He had completed the background details of the mural while Sky was away, blending her carefully drawn motorcycles into a landscape of road, sky, and changing light. Every Iron Jaws member appeared somewhere in the scene, including riders who had died, moved away, or stopped coming around long ago. Luther stood near the center, painted in the sharp colors he would have loved, his face turned slightly toward the riders behind him. The smaller figure remained unfinished, exactly as Sky had left her.