She left before either of us could answer.
The coast road was dark and familiar.
Tovia drove it slowly, without urgency, the Atherton night pressing soft against the windows. The Pacific was somewhere to the left, invisible in the dark but present the way it always was — enormous and permanent and entirely itself.
She thought about her mother.
About what Grace Wilk would say if she could see her daughter right now — driving home on a Wednesday night in the town she had grown up in, having spent the day doing something significant and difficult and entirely right, moving toward a version of herself that didn’t organize around something that wasn’t available.
She thought her mother would have very little to say.
Would probably just reach over and squeeze her hand.
That was enough.
He
