it belonged there.
Not a taxi. Not an Uber. Not the kind of car that ever pulled up to St. Bridg unless it took a wrong turn and regretted it.
The door opened and a woman stepped out in a tailored coat the color of midnight.
Evelyn Hart—my grandmother.
I hadn’t seen her in over a year. I knew that because my life had been measured in before everything fell apart and after, and she belonged firmly in before.
She looked exactly the way she always did: composed, elegant, and slightly terrifying. Not in a cruel way—in an I once ended a boardroom argument by raising one eyebrow way.
Her gaze landed on me first, and I saw recognition, then confusion. Then it landed on Laya, and something changed in her face—something quick and sharp, like a crack in glass.
She looked up at the sign above the entrance, then back at me.
“Maya,” she said, and my name sounded strange in her voice, like she hadn’t said it out loud in a long time.
“What are you doing here?”
My first instinct was to lie—not because I thought she’d judge me, but because I couldn’t stand being seen.
“I’m fine,” I said, which is the default lie of exhausted women everywhere.
“We’re okay. It’s temporary.”
Evelyn’s eyes flicked down to Laya’s mismatched socks and then to my hands—red and dry from too much sanitizer, too much cold, too much life.
Her voice went quieter.
“Maya,” she said again.
“Why aren’t you living in your house on Hawthorne Street?”
The world tilted.
I blinked at her.
My what?
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