Chapter 12 #2
"I want to. You gave us six years, Rosa. Six years of showing up, every single day, for both of us." I paused. "Let me do this."
She was quiet for a moment. Then: "Send me the nurse's name."
I laughed, surprising myself. Of course. Of course that was Rosa — practical right up to the edge of something emotional, and then practical again on the other side of it.
"He's going to be fine," she said then, softer. "Justin. I know that's what you're really worried about."
"He loves you."
"He does. And I love him." She squeezed my hand again. "But he has you. And he's going to have Finn, and Carter, and a whole new adventure. You know what six-year-olds are like — give him three weeks and he'll be running that school."
I laughed again, wet this time. "I hope so."
"I know so."
I stood up and pulled her into a hug — properly, both arms, the kind that said everything I couldn't quite find words for.
She held on for a moment, warm and steady the way she always was, and then she patted my back twice and stepped back with the brisk efficiency of a woman who had decided that was enough sentiment for one morning.
"Now," she said, picking up both our coffee cups. "Let's talk about which boxes need to be packed first."
I told Justin that evening — just the two of us at the kitchen table, Rosa having tactfully found somewhere else to be.
I'd thought about how to frame it. A first-grader didn't need the full picture — the salary negotiations and the bittersweet complexity of leaving a life you loved. He needed the good parts, presented clearly and with enthusiasm.
So I leaned across the table and said: "Bud. How would you feel about a really big adventure?"
He looked up from his dessert with immediate suspicion. "What kind of adventure?"
"We're moving to St. Louis. A new city, and a new house — and here's the best part, you get to help me find the perfect one. We'll look at a bunch and pick our favorite together. A new school, too." I paused. "And Finn will be right there in the same city."
He stared at me. "How near?"
"Very near. Same city — so you'd see him on weekends and playdates, all the time, not just on visits."
He processed this for approximately three seconds. "Will Carter be there?"
"Carter lives there, yes."
"Can I bring Carter Junior?"
"Absolutely."
He picked up his spoon, satisfied. "Okay," he said. "When do we go?"
I looked over his head at Rosa, who had appeared silently in the kitchen doorway. She raised one eyebrow at me — a whole sentence in a single look, the way only Rosa could manage. One summer. That's all it took, and your careful, slow-moving life turned into this.
She wasn't wrong.
The weeks that followed were the fullest I could remember in a long time — not overwhelming exactly, just dense with everything that needed doing.
Sarah Henderson from Barnett's relocation team called the very next morning, exactly as Dr. Howe had promised, and she was extraordinary — calm, efficient, and clearly someone who had done this many times before.
She found temporary housing near the hospital while the house search got underway, arranged school enrollment for Justin, and sent me a carefully vetted list of everything I'd need to get settled. I leaned on her more than I expected to, and was grateful every time.
The harder work was mine alone. Handing off my unit took five careful weeks — protocols documented, relationships introduced, the institutional knowledge that lived in my head slowly transferred to my deputy.
I wrote handover notes that ran longer than anyone would read, which was simply the way I was built.
Justin, for his part, handled the whole thing with a small boy's pragmatism and occasional bursts of theatrical enthusiasm.
He packed his own bag — unsupervised, which resulted in six stuffed animals, zero socks, and a flashlight he'd apparently been saving for an important occasion — and declared himself ready to move approximately six weeks before the actual moving date.
"I'm ready," he told me one morning at breakfast, with great dignity.
"We don't move for six more weeks, bud."
"I know." He considered his cereal. "I'm just saying I'm ready when it's time."
Rosa and I exchanged a look across the kitchen. Neither of us could argue with that.
Carter came to Chicago one more time before the move — a long weekend in late August, the last visit before the season started and everything shifted into a different gear. We didn't do anything special.
We went to the farmer's market and let Justin pick out every vegetable that caught his eye — which turned out to be mostly purple ones, for reasons he couldn't fully explain but felt strongly about.
We ate dinner on my porch swing, the three of us and Rosa, plates balanced on our knees, the summer going golden and slow around us.
Justin fell asleep in Carter's lap before nine o'clock and Carter carried him upstairs without being asked, the way he always did.
Rosa and I sat on the porch after, in the easy quiet that came at the end of a good evening.
"He's a good man," Rosa said.
"I know he is."
"Justin knows too."
"Justin knew before I did," I said, which was probably true.
She picked up her coffee. "Your life is going to be very full, mija."
I looked out at my street — at the oak tree, the neighbor's lights, the evening quality of this block I'd been absorbing for eleven years — and thought about October.
About a city I didn't know yet but was starting to feel like mine anyway.
About a kid who had asked when do we go like it was the most natural question in the world.
"I think it already is," I said.
Rosa smiled into her coffee and didn't say anything else.
Neither did I. Neither of us needed to.