Seventy-two hours is three days.
Mia had learned over the last two months to measure time differently than she used to — not in hours but in tasks, not in days but in things she could control. The seventy-two hours after the hearing ended she measured in the following way: two Target shifts, one therapy session, six curriculum planning sessions for January, four meals cooked in Sarah's kitchen rather than assembled from whatever was available, and three evenings with Nathan that had nothing to do with the case.
The last three were the ones that held her.
They did not talk about the ruling. They had agreed to that — not formally, just by instinct, the way two people who understand each other agree to things without requiring them to be said out loud. They talked about other things. He to
