CHAPTER 7
Two Weeks Later
Emma packed slowly over the following two weeks, giving herself time to be entirely certain rather than moving on the kind of impulse that could be second-guessed later.
She said little to Ryan about her plans, watching him fold back into work within days of Eli's birth, Victor's texts arriving even during the hospital stay.
She left on a Tuesday morning while Ryan was at the office, Eli strapped into his car seat for the four-hour drive to Sparrow Lake, Minnesota, where her college roommate had been quietly, patiently offering her a guest room for months.
She did not leave a letter. She left the two voice memos exactly where they'd been sitting for months, unsent, on the family cloud backup, trusting that he'd find them eventually, or trusting, perhaps, that he wouldn't, and that either outcome would tell her something true about what came next.
She told her sister only the barest outline of her plan, understanding that too much explanation risked someone talking her out of it before she'd had the chance to actually try it, and her sister, hearing the outline, offered no argument, only the name of a moving company and an offer to help pack.
She left the crib exactly as it was, the nursery Ryan had barely finished assembling still standing untouched, taking only what she and Eli would immediately need, understanding that returning for the rest, later, on her own terms, mattered more than taking everything at once.
She thought, driving north with Eli asleep in his car seat, about the specific relief of finally being the one making a decision instead of simply absorbing someone else's, a small, sturdy comfort that carried her through the four-hour drive despite the enormity of everything she was leaving behind.
She stopped once during the drive north, at a rest area outside Madison, and sat in the car for a while simply breathing, Eli asleep in his car seat, the whole enormity of what she was doing arriving in waves she couldn't always drive through steadily, before continuing on with the same quiet determination that had carried her this far.
She left a single note after all, brief, on the kitchen counter, not explaining everything, simply stating the essential facts: she and Eli were safe, she needed time and distance to think clearly, and she would call when she was ready.
She did not mention Sparrow Lake. She wanted, for now, that particular piece of information to remain entirely hers.
Her sister met her partway, driving two hours to help with the last stretch of the trip, and the two of them talked for most of the remaining drive about everything except the actual reason for the move, an easy, distracting conversation Emma found herself deeply grateful for in a week that had otherwise offered very little distraction from the size of what was happening.
She thought, crossing into Wisconsin on the drive north, about how strange it was that a state line could feel like such a significant threshold, understanding, passing the welcome sign, that whatever waited on the other side of this drive was going to require her to become a considerably more self-reliant version of herself than she'd ever needed to be before.
She thought, somewhere past the halfway point of the drive, about calling her mother, and decided against it, not out of any reluctance to share the news but out of a clearer, steadier instinct that she needed, first, to simply arrive somewhere safe before she tried to explain to anyone else what had happened.
She turned the radio on for the first time since leaving the city, found nothing that fit the day's specific weight, and turned it back off, choosing the quiet instead.
She arrived in Sparrow Lake well after dark, her roommate having left a key under the mat with a note taped beside it, small-town practicality asserting itself in a way Emma would come to deeply appreciate over the following months.
She did not unpack that first night. She simply sat on the edge of the unfamiliar bed, still in the clothes she'd left the city in, and finally, fully, let herself feel the size of the day.
She spent much of that first week in Sparrow Lake simply walking, exploring the small town's streets in long, unhurried loops that gave her tired mind somewhere useful to go besides the specific replay of everything that had happened, and found, in the physical motion of it, a small, steady relief that nothing else that week quite managed to offer.
Her landlord back in Chicago, informed by email that she'd be vacating early, responded with unexpected kindness, waiving the remaining lease penalty once Emma explained briefly that circumstances had changed, one more small mercy in a week that otherwise felt entirely uncushioned.
She stopped once during the long drive north, at a rest area outside Madison, and sat in the car for a while simply breathing, Eli not yet born but already the specific, steadying reason she kept driving instead of turning around, the whole enormity of what she was doing arriving in waves she couldn't always move through steadily.
She thought, watching the Wisconsin countryside blur past the window, about the specific kind of courage required to leave without a plan beyond simply arriving somewhere safe, and found, to her own quiet surprise, that she possessed considerably more of that courage than she'd ever had occasion to test before this particular week.
The four-hour drive gave her considerably more time than she expected to sit with the full weight of what she was doing, and by the time she finally crossed into Minnesota, she found herself surprised by how much lighter, rather than heavier, the decision felt the further she traveled from the life she was leaving behind.
She thought, watching the mile markers pass on the drive north, about the specific kind of person she wanted to become on the other side of this particular decision, steadier, more trusting of her own judgment, considerably less willing to mistake someone else's ambition for a shared life.