Chapter 13
CARTER
Icalled her the night before the move.
Not to check in — she had everything under control, she always did. Just to hear her voice and let her know I'd be there early. "I'll be there by nine," I said. "Don't let the movers touch the kitchen until I get there."
"Carter—"
"Humor me."
A pause. Then, softer: "Okay."
I found her in the hallway when I arrived, clipboard in hand, directing the movers with the calm authority of someone who ran a thirty-person unit and wasn't going to be rattled by a moving crew. She looked up when I walked in, and something in her expression relaxed.
I kissed her. "I'm here. Where do you need me?"
She pointed at the movers. "Them."
"On it." I squeezed her hand and went to find the crew chief.
Justin was on the front steps with Carter Junior in his lap, tracking every box that came through the door with the focused intensity of a small boy who had appointed himself quality control officer.
"They dropped a box," he told me. "Mom said it had fragile on the side."
I crouched down to his level. "You keeping track of everything?"
"Someone has to," he said seriously.
"Stay at your post."
He sat up straighter. "Roger that."
The brownstone was half emptied by midmorning.
Pale rectangles on the walls where pictures had hung.
Rosa moving quietly alongside Jess, pointing out things that had been overlooked — a good knife at the back of a drawer, art supplies in a closet, a spare mailbox key that had apparently been missing for months.
The lived-in warmth of the place packed into brown boxes stacked in the hallway.
I found Jess in Justin's empty room at some point — standing in the middle of it, looking at the dinosaur mural she'd painted when he was two. The stegosaurus slightly lopsided. The T-Rex considerably more confident.
I came and stood beside her.
"The stegosaurus is terrible," she said.
"The stegosaurus has character."
She laughed, and I pulled her into me and held on for a moment. Then she took a breath, squared her shoulders, and went back to the kitchen. There was still work to do and she wasn't going to let a stegosaurus slow her down.
Rosa made lunch on the kitchen counter — sandwiches, efficient and generous.
We ate standing up, the four of us, in a kitchen that was mostly packed and entirely chaotic.
Justin reported that the movers had been satisfactory overall but he had notes.
Rosa watched him deliver his assessment with the expression she'd been wearing all morning — steady and fond and privately feeling everything she wasn't going to perform.
The movers finished late in the afternoon.
We stood on the sidewalk and watched the truck pull away. Justin watched it until it disappeared around the corner, then checked Carter Junior's location — backpack, confirmed — and seemed satisfied that all was in order.
Jess looked at the brownstone one last time.
I watched her look at it. The window boxes. The red front door. The porch swing.
Her hand found mine. I squeezed it so she knew I was with her.
We stood there, the four of us, in front of a house that had been a home and was about to be someone else's.
Rosa's goodbye was simple and full of love.
She crouched down to Justin first, told him he was going to be extraordinary, and presented him with a photo album she had put together — pictures of the brownstone, of Justin at every age, of the four of them in the kitchen and on the front steps and at the park with the ducks.
Justin held it carefully, like something important, which it was.
She looked at me. "Take care of them."
"Every day," I said.
Then she turned to Jess, and before either of them could say anything too large, Jess pulled her into a hug and held on. Rosa held back, warm and steady, and then stepped back and adjusted Jess's collar the way she always did.
"See you soon," she said. "You'll be back up here for Christmas — you promised me. I'm holding you to it."
Jess smiled. "We'll be there. Early Christmas in Chicago — moving away doesn't change that."
Rosa looked at Justin one more time, touched his cheek, and picked up her bag. "Call me when you get to St. Louis so I know you got there safely."
She walked to her Uber. We waved until we couldn't see it as it turned the corner.
We loaded into the cars as the last of the October light faded. Justin climbed into Jess's back seat with Carter Junior and his backpack and declared himself ready. Jess stood at her car door for a moment, looking back at the brownstone one final time.
I waited.
She turned, found me watching her, and nodded once — the nod of someone who had made peace with something and was ready to move.
"Let's go," she said.
We drove to St. Louis in convoy — me in front, Jess behind. Justin fell asleep before the state line, which I knew because she texted me: out. I smiled and kept driving.
The October fields opened wide on either side of the road, the light already gone, and I thought about the headlights in my rearview mirror — steady and certain, following me home.
The Missouri border came up ahead — green sign, white letters, ordinary as anything.
I didn't call her. She'd see it.
We pulled into the hotel Sarah Henderson had arranged, Jess parking next to me in the lot.
Justin woke up just enough to register the word hotel and immediately asked about the vending machine situation.
I helped get their bags up to the room, made sure they had everything they needed, and watched Justin fall back asleep almost before his head hit the pillow.
Jess walked me to the door.
"Thank you," she said. "For today. For all of it."
"Get some sleep." I kissed her. "The movers will be at the temporary house early."
"I know." She leaned against the doorframe. "Carter."
"Yeah."
"We made it."
I looked at her — this woman who had packed up eleven years and driven four hours toward something new without flinching — and felt the full size of what that meant.
"You made it," I said. "I just drove in front."
She smiled, and I kissed her again, and went down to my car and drove home through the St. Louis night thinking about headlights in a rearview mirror and what it meant to finally be followed home.
I kept driving.