“Mom, I’m forty minutes away.”
“That is not relevant.”
“You literally work in a trauma clinic and this is what breaks you?”
“Be quiet.”
James laughed so hard he missed the exit.
Maya took over the upstairs bathroom within twenty-four hours of her brother leaving.
Family life moved.
That movement became another form of reclamation.
One autumn evening, nearly three years after the incident, Imani returned from work after sunset. Rain had fallen earlier, leaving the driveway glossy beneath the porch light. She parked outside because James’s car occupied the garage.
For a moment, she remained behind the wheel.
The wet concrete looked almost exactly as it had after the soda, eggs, and tomatoes mixed together on the ground.
Her body remembered before she told it not to.
Heart faster.
Shoulders tight.
Hands cold.
She placed both palms on the steering wheel and waited.
Leah’s voice lived somewhere in memory: You do not have to win against the reaction. You only have to know what it is.
Imani breathed.
“This is rain,” she said aloud.
The car was silent.
She almost laughed at herself.
Then she got out.
The night smelled like wet leaves.
She carried her briefcase in one hand and a grocery bag in the other. The porch light cast a warm rectangle across the steps.
Fifteen feet.
Three steps.
The same door.
She reached into her purse.
Before she found the keys, the door opened from inside.
James stood there wearing sweatpants and an apron.
“You’re late.”
“You’re cooking?”
“That tone is hurtful.”
“What did you burn?”
“Nothing yet.”
Maya shouted from the kitchen, “He burned garlic!”
James looked over his shoulder. “Betrayal.”
Imani stood on the threshold laughing.
Then she noticed she had not thought about Hutchkins until that exact second.
Not in the car.
Not during the walk.
Not on the steps.
The memory had come after safety instead of before it.