I give up on sleep around five-thirty. Shower. Dress. Stand at the window watching the sky go from black to gray to something that might eventually be morning.
By six I’m at the coffee shop down the street, ordering two large coffees and a bag of bagels because I don’t know what she likes and it seems safer to bring options. Everything bagel, plain, cinnamon raisin. Cream cheese on the side.
I’m overthinking bagels.
That’s probably a sign of something I don’t want to examine too closely.
The drive to her apartment takes eleven minutes. I know because I count, the way I always count. Minutes between locations. Exits in every room. Seconds it takes to draw my weapon if I need to.
The job trains you to notice certain things. Threats. Escape routes. The weight of a room and whether it feels safe.
What the job doesn’t train you for is noticing the way a woman’s hands shake when she’s trying to hold herself together.The way her voice goes flat when she’s checked out of her own body. The way she flinches, just slightly, when you call her by a name that isn’t hers.
She answers on the third knock.
She’s rumpled and soft-looking in a way that makes something protective tighten in my chest. And then something else that’s decidedly not protective.
“Morning,” I say, holding up the coffee. “Thought you might need this.”
She blinks at me. Takes the cup with both hands, wrapping her fingers around it. The thought of what else she might need to hold onto surfaces before I can stop it.
“Thank you.” Her voice is quiet. Flat. The voice of someone going through motions because motions are all she has left.
I follow her inside. The apartment looks exactly the same as when I left it. Her bag is still by the door, still zipped, still holding everything she owns in the world. The kitchen counters are empty.
The silence has a weight to it, like the air has given up.
“Did you eat anything?” I ask, already knowing the answer.
She looks at the bagels like she’s forgotten what food is for. “I’m not hungry.”
“You need to eat anyway.”
I don’t make it a suggestion. I find a plate in the cabinet, put a bagel on it, spread cream cheese because it occurs to me she might not have the energy to do it herself. Set it in front of her at the small table that came with the apartment, the kind of table designed by someone who’s never had a real meal in their life.
She sits. Stares at the bagel.
I sit across from her with my own coffee and wait.
This is something I’ve learned over the years. You can’t rush people through grief. Can’t push them to be okay faster than they’re capable of being okay. All you can do is sit with them, bepresent, let them know they’re not alone in whatever darkness they’re swimming through.
After a long moment, she picks up the bagel. Takes a bite. Chews like it’s a job she’s been assigned.
It’s something. Not enough, but something.
“I have your work login information,” I tell her, pulling the folder from my jacket. “You start Monday. Data entry, medical billing codes. Straightforward stuff. They email assignments, you complete them, submit. Everything’s remote.”
She nods. Doesn’t look at the folder.
“Beth.”
The flinch again. Subtle, but there.
Shit.
“Stevie,” I correct, even though I shouldn’t. Even though the whole point is for her to become Beth, to let Stevie go, to build a life that doesn’t include the name she was born with. “You with me?”
Her eyes meet mine.
