Cole appeared the following morning with the expression of a man who had already decided not to be polite.
"What's going on?"
Emily was sitting at the table doing resistance exercises exactly as prescribed.
"Physical therapy."
"You know what I mean."
"No, I don't."
"You bit Cody's head off. You're not sleeping. Reese says you're living on coffee and spite."
"Reese talks too much."
"Not enough, usually."
Emily focused on the band around her ankle.
"The knee is healing."
"I didn't ask about the knee."
"The claim is moving."
"Didn't ask about that either."
She stopped the exercise.
Cole sat across from her.
"You want to tell me why the woman who could work on my Harley with a collapsing knee suddenly looks terrified now that the worst part is supposed to be over?"
Emily's first instinct was anger.
Her second was denial.
Both required more energy than she had left.
"Because it is over," she said.
Cole waited.
"That is the problem."
He remained silent.
Emily stared at the table. "I know how to get through bad things. I know how to work when I'm exhausted. I know how to hurt and not let people see it. I know how to solve the problem in front of me and then solve the next one."
Her voice began to shake.
"I know how to fight."
Cole's expression softened.
"I do not know how to do this."
She gestured at the groceries, the brace, the paid medical leave, the apartment somebody had cleaned while she was at therapy.
"This?"
"People being kind to me. People staying. Waking up and there is nothing I have to fight before breakfast."
Tears filled her eyes and made her angry.
"I keep waiting for the catch. I keep waiting for one mistake to make all of this disappear. I keep waiting for you to decide I am too much trouble. Or for the claim to get denied again. Or for the knee to fail. Or for everybody to get bored and go back to their real lives."
She covered her face.
"Everything is going right and I am falling apart because I don't know how to trust something good. I only know how to hold something hard."
Cole sat with the confession for a long time.
Then he said, "I know what that is."
Emily lowered her hands.
"You?"
"You think you invented keeping the world at arm's length?"
He leaned back and rubbed one hand over his beard.
"I buried friends. More than I like counting. Some from roads, some from sickness, some from stupid choices. Every time you love something and lose it, your brain learns a lesson. Not necessarily the right lesson. Just a lesson."
He looked toward the window overlooking the shop.